


Light With A Sharpened Edge

by poetic_leopard



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Boys In Love, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Ronan Being an Asshole, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, Seriously This Is Gonna Be Slow Burn AF, Slow Burn, canon elements in AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-08-09 04:55:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 144,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7787530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetic_leopard/pseuds/poetic_leopard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam Parrish works as a sober companion, but he has no idea of the storm that's soon to hit him when Ronan Lynch turns out to be his newest client. (Or the one where Adam Parrish and Ronan Lynch are trapped underneath the same roof for six weeks.) </p><p>*</p><p>Ronan, to his surprise, opened his eyes. For a breathless moment, Adam was transfixed in them. They were the color of the ocean on the most azure of nights, lightning right before it struck the ground, damp hydrangeas on a fog-swept morning. Those eyes gave him chills.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Vulture

_“You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams. And it is well that you should.” - Kahlil Gibran  
_

* * *

**PROLOGUE**  
  
Dreams are strange things. These realms of quasi-realities that exist merely in the indefinite spaces inside of one’s own mind. The images, ideas, emotions and sensations that occur in dreams often involuntary and subconscious. Despite tireless speculation and the introduction of oneirology, scientists have yet to figure out the definitive content and purpose of dreams.

Throughout history, opinions and emotions regarding dreams had seen shifts like the sea, but a few ideas have remained constant throughout. Even with the countless claims from people who can allegedly control their dreams and the discovery that lucid dreaming is, to a certain exist, entirely plausible, facts have still proven that we cannot touch our dreams or find the very source of them. So every morning we wake up and forget these little harmless movies our brains play for us.

After all, even the worst and most vivid of nightmares can’t physically affect us. Even if we feel a little lightheaded and spooked for the rest of the day.

In fact, even death in a dream means very little, since it doesn’t truly indicate that you are to die, even with mythical implications of premonitions and the subconscious mind being a psychic channel. Usually it just means that you had a stressful day, or that you’re feeling insecure. Some books that assert to crack the code of dreams even state that it could mean a form of rebirth.  
  
But what if death in a dream actually did mean death in real life?  
  
What if you woke up one morning to realize that you were an anomaly of science?  
  
What if you could touch your dreams, and what if they could touch you back?

* * *

It started out a day as normal as any. They all did.

Despite his contentious choice of occupation and contrary to popular belief, his life wasn’t all action-packed car chases and shifts at dodgy clubs and accidental run-ins with warlords or gang members like the media would have most people believe.

The Gray Man’s routine went somewhat like this: an 8 AM wake up call, breakfast at the shoddy little diner across from his apartment building, with the chatty red-lipped waitresses and the tiled floors, then he’d ride the bus to Central Park and spend a couple hours enjoying what little scenic beauty New York City had to offer, chewing a coffee-flavored toffee and sifting through the newspaper.

He would watch the exhausted mothers hauling cranky babies in strollers, young people on early-evening jogs, and exchange a smile with the old lady who walked her jack russell terrier down the same path everyday. He would admire the birds and write down the names of any new ones he’d spotted.

Once, he’d even had the pleasure to glimpse a Painting Bunting on a speculatively reserved fall evening. He recalled the vibrancy of its multicolored feathers and the dark lines of its beak. It must’ve been in the process of migrating for the coming winter, since its type was rarely spotted in the bustling concrete jungle that was the Big Apple.

After that he’d go back home, prepare himself some tea or coffee, depending on his mood, and sit down on his favorite leather couch to read some Anglo-Saxon poetry or work on his pending thesis on violence in early adolescence. Even though he travelled a lot whenever he was on-call, he had a moderately nice home in the marrows of East Brooklyn. It had two bedrooms, a spacious bathroom and a cosmopolitan view.

The home itself was an immaculate little beauty, with decorative pillow sets, sea green wallpaper and a wide array of old, worn paintings he’d bought on eBay, with gold-embellished framework to boot.

He’d been sipping on Earl Grey tea in his socks curled up on his favorite couch in his well furnished modern home when he’d got the call that would ruin a fairly generous amount of lives.

All he received was a name and an address through a hushed and slightly hurried voice on the other end of the line. Whilst some men often received the entire biography of their targets from day of birth to their favorite color, his employer felt it unnecessary for his hirelings to learn about the people whose lives they were to snatch away. It was an efficient method of going about it, even if a tad ruthless, the Gray Man had to admit.

Going after an empirical stranger, it left no room for empathy or doubt.

The Gray Man was a hit man, and sometimes, he forgot that these people he killed were actually well… _people_. People with families and friends and children and whole actual lives. It wasn’t that he didn’t possess a conscience, he merely kept it deeply buried beneath layers and layers of varieties and certitudes.

He lived in states of muted delusion. It was the only way to live after knowing the extent of the damage you’d caused to the world, after watching the ship you’d punctured a thousand holes in finally sink into the sea.  
  
So of course, he wasn’t surprised when the seventeen-year-old boy showed up at his doorstep with a thirst for vengeance.

Just like the Anglo-Saxons, the Gray Man believed in karma, and he knew that this dodgy profession of his, the one that meant food on the table and a continued subscription to National Geographic Magazine for him on an average Tuesday, would someday mean the death of him.  
  
So the Gray Man rose his hands up in surrender, patiently turning to face Niall Lynch’s estranged middle son.

Maybe his time was up. Maybe it wasn’t.  
  
All he knew for certain was that it had been a means to an end from the start.

* * *

Adam struggled to keep awake against the stilted monotone buzzing of voices at the lecture hall. His back was killing him and his forehead throbbed from lack of sleep.

The class was jam packed, there were at least another eighty people in here along with him, which meant that the professor wouldn’t actually care if one of the students was nodding off. Chances were, lots of other people were doing it, taking impromptu naps in the midst of a lecture.  
  
Still, it was probably important that he remained sharp for the remainder of the class. Adam sighed, slouching in his seat; unable to follow the Professor’s rapid musings. It was difficult to concentrate when you were running on barely two hours of sleep and more caffeine than your body could handle. Even his mouth felt dry, like he’d been chewing on paper.

 _It’s just one bummed class_ , he consoled himself. _You’ll do better next time._

He had to do better next time. He wasn’t giving himself a choice. He hadn’t gotten the hell away from the secluded little town he’d grown up in only to drastically fail.

Adam took a sip of water and tried again, making an effort this time to diligently take notes, even if they were only half-understood, he could always look them up online and connect the dots later.

Once class was over, he packed up his things and made his way down the steps to the front of the room, where Professor Jared was gathering his notes. “Parrish,” he said, referring to his last name.

Adam halted in his tracks and turned around, hoping he could keep the obvious surprise off his face. “Sir, you uh… know who I am?”  
  
Professor Jared smiled, he was in his late-forties, with thin greying hair and a french-beard. The worry lines that etched across his forehead and especially between his eyes stipulating late nights, bundles of stress and perhaps even a poor home life. Maybe he had a cheating wife or a son in the army.

“Well, of course,” he said, looking up from his lectern, where he’d begun to collect his own belongings, and met Adam’s eyes. “You’re the kid who wrote that essay on Zimbardo and the evaluations of his prison experiment, yes?”  
  
Adam gave him a curt nod.  
  
“Brilliant writing,” he acknowledged. “I recall you being one of the top students in my class. You seemed to have a thorough grasp of the subject. I was really hoping I’d see you join the department as a major in the future,”  
  
Adam broke into a small smile. “Thank you, sir. Uh yeah, I’ve been considering graduate school. Another year and I should have a bachelor’s degree in hand,” he said.

It had taken him almost four years to obtain that, with the first two being in Henrietta. Working full time _and_ going to school full time had proved to wear thin on him. Not to mention finding ways to fund his education.

Between financial aid and scholarships, he was able to scrape by every semester, but it usually meant only being able to take a couple courses at a time or making up their difference over the summer.  
  
The only reason he’d been able to apply for this course at all was a new source of funding, which he was hoping would put him that much closer to his beloved degree.  
  
“But I will recommend that you think long and hard before you decide to commit further to this field of study, Mr. Parrish,” the Professor said.  
  
Adam frowned. “What do you mean?”  
  
“This is not a subject where you can afford to waste time going through the motions. You must be active-proactive, even. It’s a competitive field, especially once you enter the graduate level of study.”  
  
“With all due respect sir,” Adam said. “I’ve been studying for five years. I think I know what I’m doing and what I want out of my academic career.”  
  
“Can I ask what brought you to this path of study?”  
  
“It’s interesting subject,” he replied, shortly.  
  
Professor Jared studied him carefully, Adam felt like a bug under a microscope for a couple silent seconds. “You do know that I’m a Psychology professor, right?” the implication was clear as day.

Adam forced a tight smile. “Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t, sir.”  
  
The prof gave him a quick pat on the shoulder. “Immersion, son. _Remember_. Is key,” he said.  
  
Adam nodded hastily, suddenly itching to get out and into the sunlight and maybe grant himself another coffee. “Thank you, sir. For the advice,” he muttered, half-heartedly, before turning on his heel and heading out of the classroom.  
  
It was a warm day, the sky almost cloudless and the sun a bright burning candle in a sea of blue. Adam slipped on a pair of sunglasses as he made his way across the street, messenger bag slung over his shoulder.

Buckwell University was situated by the harbor in the bustling arms of hellbent skyscrapers and the red-eyed beasts of traffic. It was harrowing sometimes, but there was something about being a faceless nameless stranger in an ocean full of them that he adored.

Nobody to nag him or question him or bother him about the way he dressed or the way he talked or the way he lived. He enjoyed that everyone here was self-governed, merely a tiny replaceable scrap of the well oiled machine that was New York City, never stopping, never blinking, always minding their own business, too whirled up in their own crazy lives to stop and think about anyone else’s.  
  
It had been daunting when he’d first moved, he’d felt lost and overwhelmed. Now there was an inexplicable ease to it.

The city’s smoggy breath was soft humming background noise to the song of the rising star that he so ached to be.  
  
Adam took in the cramped sidewalk, the passing businessmen with their surreptitious briefcases, the cabs incessant honking.

After two whole years away from home, he felt like he fit right in with the cacophony. He dropped a few dimes into the plastic cup of a bum begging for spare change and kept walking. His phone buzzed in his back pocket and he pulled it out swiftly, picking up without checking to see who it was.  
  
“Are you choking on your own spit yet?” came the playful female voice on the other end of the line.

Adam felt a smile tug at his lips. “Good morning to you, too, Blue.”

“I actually feel like I’ve got Empty Nest Syndrome, watching you fly up there with the big birds,” she muttered, with a theatrical sigh.

Adam chuckled. Blue was his best friend, she lived in Long Island along with her large, colorful family which consisted solely of women, unless he were to count the legions of men they’d turned into rats that skittered about their attic. She was an Ecology major who worked behind the sets of the various documentary films that her aunts Calla and Persephone made. She was also the only non-Psychic in a family of well-established Psychics.

Blue had been the first person Adam had ever kissed, but they’d later decided that they were much better off as friends than they were as… whatever it was that they’d thought they were before.

Blue was kind and strange and warm. She dressed as if she owned a thrift shop and her hair blasted around her face like a chaotic mushroom cloud.  
  
“It’ll be okay, they’re just people,” Adam assured.

Blue could be fiercely protective sometimes (which was an understatement). “They’re people who suck on narcotics like leeches and brush their teeth in the morning with cigarette butts.”  
  
“They’re people who need help,” Adam improvised, determined to remain positive.  
  
He’d left all the negativity in his life _behind_. He’d been attempting to conquer the spell of the glass half-full magic trick for years now and he was no longer going to let little chinks hinder his armor.  
  
Adam was already on his way across town, he had to get to Long Island by 2 PM to meet his new client. Blue was one of the only people, aside from Noah, who knew about what he did for a living. It was oftentimes difficult to keep up a social life in between his job and his classes.

He was also contractually required to keep most of what he did confidential, so telling people that he wouldn’t be able to see them for almost six weeks on end at odd times throughout the year made the endeavor of maintaining friendships rather difficult.  
  
Blue was the one person he could usually speak to about it, because she was understanding and always present to lend a listening ear when he was at his worst.  
  
He was a sober companion.  
  
It had started about two years ago when waiting tables wasn’t making Adam enough and he didn’t have the time to commit to a temp job or anything else full time.  
Noah, a friend from a study group had mentioned how his cousin worked as a sobriety companion.  
  
“It would be like, perfect, man! You’re a psych major, and you know, considering your weird loathing of all things alcoholic...” he’d said. “Plus it pays a buttload. It should be enough, I’m guessing, for you to be able to work off. Check it out, yeah?”  
  
It turned out that Noah was right. His cousin made $700 a day for six weeks of work. He’d done the mental math and realized that it would be enough to pay his bills and still be able to take classes.

The timing had been perfect, too. Noah’s cousin had been able to set him up with his first client, the sister of her current client at the time. She’d explained that it was sometimes ineffectual for family members to have the same sober companions, because it could create conflicts of interest.  
  
Adam had had a string of a few clients since then, both male and female, all with various forms and extents of addictions. He’d kept track of most of them even after their stint had ended, and whilst some had continued to make strides in their recovery, there were always ones that had relapsed.

Despite feeling disappointed about not being able to make enough of a difference to change their habits, Noah’s cousin had explained to him that it wasn’t always a measure of his success or failure if somebody relapsed. In the end, a person could only do so much. It was his responsibility to be that buffer between rehab and the real world that most addicts needed.

Adam took the metro to Long Island, it being the quickest and cheapest way of travel.  
  
“Remember what I said about big birds?” Blue echoed. “This one sounds like a vulture.”  
  
Adam had to admit, it was an odd case. His client was an alcoholic, with a history of violent behavior and paranoia. When he was sixteen, his friend had found him in bed, in a pool of his own blood, paralyzed and suffering. Thanks to the quick-thinking of his friend and advances in modern medicine, he’d survived. Recovery however, didn’t seem to ameliorate him. Three mere months after he’d healed and he’d begun dabbling in heroin apaced with alcohol.

His brother, who’d hired him via email correspondence, had explained to him that the rehab had been part of his juvy sentencing after he’d nearly beat a man to death with his bare fists when he was only seventeen years old.

After months in intensive care, the man had survived and the boy’s wealthy brother had pulled some strings, which had been enough to extricate him from any actual jail time.  
  
Adam didn’t think it was fair, of course, he thought it was immensely wrong that a person who’d almost killed someone was allowed to walk free just because of his affluence, but that was the way of the world now, Adam understood that. It was why he worked as hard as he did, to get a taste of how the other half lived.  
  
“My concern is that my brother has no real interest in leading a sober life,” Declan Lynch, his client’s brother, had told him. “I’m hoping that you could help assess this for me while also encouraging him to stay clean.”  
  
Adam had never worked with someone who didn’t actually, at least on some level, have a desire to beat their addiction before. He wondered if that was all true about his client.

After an awakening experience of landing someone in the hospital and landing in a hospital himself, plus a long stint in a rehab facility, certainly something must have sunk into his psyche. At least, he hoped.  
  
“You offering to be my bodyguard, Sargent?” he said.  
  
“You wish,” she scoffed. “I have a life _unlike some people_ ,” she never meant it in a rude way, she was just always worried about him, going on and on about how he was letting the beast that was his pride chew up every good thing that ever had the misfortune of crossing his path.

Adam rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have some frogs to kiss?”  
  
“You implicating that I’m a princess?”  
  
“No. That would be blasphemy."   
  
“That’s right. Anyway, carry on. I’ve got some cauldrons to stew. Just don’t get eaten. Vultures like to circle the dying bodies of their prey for hours at a time before they go in for the eventual kill.” She muttered, in an attempt to be petrifying, before cutting the phone.  
  
Adam sighed and dropped his phone back into his pocket. The train doors slid open and he poured out along with the rest of the churning horde. He made his way up to the street and pulled his phone back out to open up a map.

He found himself in one of Long Island’s quieter neighborhoods, of course, Long Island was popularly known as being one of the more suburban joints of the long-limbed city.

It was a quaint little neighborhood abound with vintage shops and record stores, compact little coffee shops and redbrick homes, all large and sultry with their own backyards and garages and lawns delicately permed, showcasing their tastes in both lawn ornaments and political leader.  
  
It was clearly an opulent side of town, where the rich could thrive in houses furnished like those pastries you got at tea parties. Some of the walls were painted in rainbow swirls of vivid and confusing graffiti. The sidewalks were littered with fliers from yard sales and local band concerts that’d been held months ago. Mothers sporting diamond jewellery or flashy neon yoga pants strolled around the streets with their children.

A young girl whizzed past him on her skateboard. There was an actual tabby cat sitting up in an oak tree by a small garden, a cluster of kindergarteners and their ostensible babysitter stood beneath it, analyzing the best approach to get the creature down. Adam gave his phone another quick glance.  
  
652 5th Street South  
Auburn, NY 13021  
  
Adam stared at the black iron gate and the home it concealed, which happened to be the largest house on the block. It was in a clearing past all the smaller, more identical looking suburban homes that he’d passed on his way over.

The gates were covered in moss and rotting flower vines like the owners hadn’t bothered with any maintenance. Adam couldn’t imagine owning a home like a castle and _not_ embellishing it.

The house itself towered over the rest of the meek neighborhood as if attempting to intimidate it. A sad fountain drooped in the front lawn, rendered a toilet for birds.

The windows were all concealed by dark curtains. The trees shaded most of the house, riddling it with dancing shadows despite the sunny semblance of the day.  
  
Regardless of its impeccable size and structure, it looked like the house down the block that all the kids would purposely avoid come Halloween.

It was old and wan and almost whispering, like it had stories to tell, but nobody was listening.  
  
Adam took a deep breath and pushed the gates back, which gave after a couple whinnied creaks.  
  
He smoothed down the wrinkles over his plain round-collared white t-shirt and unruffled his denims as he rung the bell and awaited an answer. No one came to the door. Declan had told him that his brother would be arriving from the rehab facility just after the lunch hour.

The facilitators would wait for him to arrive and leave the two of them to get acquainted, then Adam would move a few things in that evening.  
  
Noah’s cousin had said that trickiest part of the job was learning how to adjust with complete strangers and be of sound mind even under duress. Adam thought that the trickiest part had more to do with the fact that he had to live with his clients for six weeks give or take. It was, after all, a 24/7 service.

It could get tedious and weird, some of his clients in the past had had strange abodes, but this was probably the largest house he’d ever been required to live in.  
  
Just as he was about to give up the door swung open. On the other side was a lady with thick dark hair that had been stretched into a bun. She wore a full-sleeved black dress and held a small clutch to her side. She had kind eyes, like a horse.  
  
The lady offered him a sheepish smile, “I’m sorry?” she muttered, in Spanish.  
  
“I’m Adam Parrish, I’m uh, his sober coach?” he replied, also in Spanish.  
  
“Oh,” the lady said. “Yes, yes. Come in. I was just leaving, Mr. Lynch just finished up with lunch,” she had a thick accent, and judging by the submissive way she held herself Adam could deduce that she was the cook.  
  
_So he doesn’t even prepare his own meals huh._  
  
Adam had a feeling this was going to be a tough one.  
  
He mustered a polite smile. “That’s okay,” he said.  
  
The lady slipped past him. He took it as an invitation and slid into the home, gently shutting the door behind him. The linoleum floors beneath his feet gave off a faint glow, like the tiles had been scrubbed recently. A long curling staircase snaked up to the upper floors.

There were doorways on either side of the room, one flowing into the kitchen and the other into the living room. The wallpaper was a dusk blue with glistering brush strokes like silver rain.  
  
For a moment, Adam almost felt like he was trespassing, but quickly reminded himself that this was his job and that he was being paid for his troubles.

The house seemed to shift and curl around him like he was walking through an unfurling wave. He observed strange paintings on the walls by artists unknown, depictions of plagues and moonlit gardens and people with morphed faces and empty eyes that seemed to seep into one’s soul.

The dining table was made of old wood and sat neglected in a desolate corner of the spacious living room. There was a fireplace and a single couch chair at the very front, the couch itself looked worn and old, the fraying material the very same shade of rotten blood.            
  
Adam quickly realized that there were absolutely no mirrors in this house, at least not in this room. It also looked devoid of much of a personality, droopy and morose. There were no childhood photo frames, nothing that indicated anyone had ever lived here at all. It lacked a history and an aura. Adam wondered if it was kept like that on purpose.  
  
The floor to ceiling windows of the main room were kept shuttered by bounteous curtains and the large trees that swayed overhead, hindering all the light. It felt as cold and silent as a graveyard at night.  
  
The man in question was seated on the moth-eaten couch, back facing Adam. He wore nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants and held a small styrofoam cup in his right hand. His eyes were closed.  
  
Adam regarded Ronan Lynch for a moment, studying him. He was lean, with a hint of muscle. It was typical of most drug abusers to have a certain gauntness about them, but his had begun to disappear after being in rehab and going through detox. The lines of his face were smiting and sharp, like he’d been chiselled by a poniard.

There was something illusive about the dark fringes of his lashes and the shadows that had taken hostage of an otherwise handsome face, like he was regarding an imaginary creature.

Adam noticed fat curling lines of ink that began at the nape of his neck, he couldn’t make out what the tattoo was but it was clearly large and probably covered every inch of his spine.

There was an effortless art to the way the boy was built, it made something in Adam’s chest ignite, perhaps it was just surprise.  
  
This boy didn’t look like most of his past clients, in fact, this boy didn’t look like anyone he’d ever seen before. He also seemed to be about Adam’s age. When Adam had imagined Ronan Lynch, he’d been expecting something different, someone gnarled and furious looking.  
  
Of course, there was perhaps a thin sheen of darkness to him, gauging from the hollows beneath his eyes, the little scar along his jawline, the sleeping chaos of his stance, like a storm in waiting.  
  
Adam cleared his throat, not wanting to startle him, and decided to break the silence.  
  
“Ronan Lynch?” he said, just to be sure.  
  
He didn’t respond, but the corner of his lip twitched. Adam assumed that the lack of denial or surprise at his appearance confirmed that he was the person he was looking for.  
  
“I’m Adam and I was hired by your brother to be your sober companion, but I’m guessing you already knew that,” he mumbled.

Still nothing.  
  
Adam was used to difficult clients. Whilst some had been surprisingly inviting and even downright chatty, he’d had others who’d refuse to acknowledge him, or ones who’d spout curses at him just for trying to help. It was just their nature, they were sick and recovering and Adam had learnt not to take any of their hostility to heart.  
  
Their behaviours were often a reflection of their own mental health rather than any misstep on Adam’s part.  
  
Adam sighed and walked over to face Ronan, crossing his arms over his chest. The other boy continued to sit in his spot in silence, eyes still shut tight like he was meditating or in some kind of trance.

“Okay, well it appears that you’ve been on your own for longer than I’d anticipated so I’m going to need you to take a drug test,” he muttered. “I know it sucks but it’s procedure, what can ya’ do?” he added, the lazy Henrietta drawl muddled in his accent latently slipping into his tone.

He began digging around in his messenger bag for the small swab kit that he always kept with him. One swipe inside of his mouth and Adam would know if he had used between the time he’d left rehab and now.

He walked forward to hand him the swab, thinking that he would acquiesce without a fight, but he continued to ignore Adam with his eyes shut.  
  
“I need you to swab this inside your cheek,” he said.  
  
Ronan didn’t move.  
  
“If you continue to avoid it I can only assume that you’ve used.”  
  
Ronan still didn’t move. Instead, he licked his lips and took another sip of his coffee, presumably using the cup to hide his smirk. Adam could tell when he was being toyed with. Declan had initially warned him that Ronan would be particularly difficult and that he liked playing games.

“My brother didn’t agree to this whole companion thing on his own concession so he’s going to be increasingly unpleasant, but I’m willing to pay extra for any trouble he gives you, I just really need this to work. I’ve tried everything else. I’m not willing to give up on him yet.” Declan had said.  
  
Adam had promised he would try, he could be stubborn too. If Ronan wanted to do this the hard way, he could play ball.  
  
Adam rolled his eyes at the lack of response. He would just wait until Ronan put the cup down and press the swab to the mouth of the cup instead. A part of him almost regretted ever signing up for this job.

It was a sprain on his time and his energy and he was already so tired all the time, but this was how he was going to pay for school, keep himself afloat.  
  
It also helped ease his conscience, when there were people like Robert Parrish out there in the world, he knew how important it was to do his bit in attempting to help people who abused drugs and alcohol to see the light and come out of their stint better humans.  
  
Adam had a policy: always keep the end goal in sight, everything else is merely a trifling stepping stone.  
  
He sighed and made his way over to the large windows.  
  
“This place is in desperate need of some light,” he said, pulling them open to let some sun rays trickle in. “Tell me,” he began. “Does living like a vampire help quench the thirst for blood?” he asked, jokingly.  
  
To his surprise, the other boy finally spoke.  
  
_“Quod iustum est. Et mordebit,”_  
  
Adam frowned, turning around. Ronan’s eyes were still closed. “Was that Latin?”  
  
_“Ut satis mirari si tu non sapis quae.”_  
  
He’d put the cup down so Adam reached over and picked up the empty cup from the end table. He took the lid off and poked his nose inside of the cup, sniffling its contents. Certainly smelt like coffee and not alcohol.

In one swift motion, he swiped the area where Ronan’s mouth had touched it with the swab and then set it back down. He snapped the swab into the drug test device. A moment later it beeped.  
  
“Congratulations,” Adam muttered, half-heartedly. “You’re drug free.”  
  
He slid the device back into his messenger bag.  
  
Ronan, to his surprise, opened his eyes. For a breathless moment, Adam was transfixed in them. They were the color of the ocean on the most azure of nights, lightning right before it hit the ground, damp hydrangeas on a fog-swept morning. Those eyes gave him chills.  
  
Ronan broke into a smile so wicked it could’ve scalped a person.  _“Sit scriptor celebrare! Omnem vestimenta vestra.”_  
  
Adam looked back into those stormy eyes with electricity of his own. “If you think you’re going to intimidate me, then you should know that you’re going to fail. Badly. I’m here to do a job and I’m not leaving until I fulfill it. So you can kick and scream and curse at me in Latin and I’ll be right here, the thorn in your side, for the next six weeks. So I suggest you make this easier on the both of us and start cooperating because I think that you’ll come to learn that I don’t give up very easily.” Ronan simply blinked, still seated motionlessly in his armchair, eyes wide, lips tight.  
  
_“Sit quod venatus incipere.”_  
  
Adam ran a hand through his hair, stepping back. He needed to catch some sleep before he could continue this maddening charade with this monstrosity of a client.  
  
“You know what? I’m going home to retrieve my things, then I’ll be back. If you aren’t here when I return, I’ll call the cops. It will be in violation of your parole to attempt to run. I’m trusting you for now, leaving you by yourself for a few hours. _Don’t_ make me regret it.”  
  
Ronan just watched him with the same impenetrable gaze that he’d been giving Adam since he’d opened his goddamn eyes.

When he didn’t respond, Adam turned and left, his heart galloping furiously in his chest. He could feel Ronan’s gaze on his back as he departed, he attempted to shake it, even if it felt like a bomb strapped to his spine.  
  
As he stepped back out into the alleviating freedom of the outside world, he couldn’t help but recall Blue’s warning about vultures.


	2. Crossfire

_"Some people sell their blood. You sell your heart. It was either that or the soul." - Margaret Atwood_

* * *

 Sometimes, he just wanted to set fire to the rugged embroidery of his fairly stressful life.  
  
When he returned to his client’s house later that evening, it appeared as if he hadn’t moved at all from where he’d last left him. Ronan was still slumped back on the couch in considerable silence, eyes closed, shirt off, like he was prepping for astral-projection.  
  
This time, Adam didn’t hesitate, or waste time with small talk.

He strolled over to Ronan and gently held the other boy’s chin up under his knuckles. “Open up. Drug test.”  
  
As expected, Ronan didn’t cooperate, so Adam simply pulled his jaw down to hold his mouth open, cold fingers against warm skin, and gave the swab a quick swipe, pulling back immediately after and testing it on the machine. Ronan didn’t open his eyes, but continued to make vaguely menacing biting and snipping motions with his teeth for a few seconds after.

The drug test came negative, which meant that despite the fact that his new client seemed hell bent on making this collaboration as miserable for the both of them as possible, he seemed to have at least somewhat of a control on his impulses.

Of course, he made no moves to make Adam feel welcome or show him around either, so Adam took it upon himself to become acquainted with his temporary abode.

It felt strange to occupy a home the size of a well-kempt mansion all by himself (and he wasn’t counting Ronan until he started behaving animate.)

Out of the three vacuous bedrooms, he chose the one with the largest windows and the king-sized bed.

There was a small nightstand and a lamp with a bulb that had shattered inside it. He decided that he’d tidy up the room before hitting the pillows.

There was also a set of dresser drawers, a hunky old wooden thing that was scratched to high hell, and a Victorian wardrobe that looked almost antique, it's teal paint chapped in places.

Adam had bought his own comforter from his apartment and a set of sheets. He made his bed and then unpacked the clothes he’d also brought with him before hanging them up in the closet.  
  
Thankfully, there was a set of wooden hangers he could use.

He even made himself some dinner once the clock struck nine, Declan had gotten Anita (their cook/part-time maid) to go fetch them all the required groceries, so the kitchen was fully stocked.

There was plenty of food from frozen meals to cereal to actual stacks of veggies and fruits to choose from, along with dishes, pots, pans, plates and everything else one would expect to find in a kitchen. The cabinets were also stashed with mismatched mugs and chinaware.  
  
Adam fixed himself a sandwich and poured himself a glass of soda before sitting down on the dining table and pulling up a book that Professor Jared had assigned him to read over the course of the weekend.

He wanted to go back up to his room, but part of the companionship was to engage with his client. Engaging with Ronan Lynch, however, was proving to be more than a challenge.

He’d been in the living room in that shabby couch of his when Adam had first gotten back, but then he’d got up and wordlessly drifted into his room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Ronan’s bedroom was the only part of the house Adam had yet to discover, well that, and the terrace, but it’d been a rainy evening and he wasn’t looking to get soaked.

He figured he could scope it out in the morning.

Clamorous electro punk music blasted from his room, and momentarily, Adam worried that he had a stash of alcohol or drugs hidden somewhere in there, but then he recalled that Declan had hired Anita for more than just her culinary skills.

“She scours every inch of the house everyday so he can’t hide anything.”

It was a smart ploy, if a little diabolical. Still, Adam approved. Sometimes, fire had to be fought with fire.  
  
A couple hours after he’d completed more than half of his reading material and the awful music that had been bleeding through every crevice of the house had stopped, he knocked on the boy’s door.

“I’m going back upstairs, I have some coursework to complete. Call out to me if you need anything. We’ll try this again tomorrow. Hopefully you’ll be feeling more chatty after a good night’s sleep.”  
  
As expected, he didn’t receive a response.

Adam sighed and bounded back up the stairs.

_One day down, only forty-two more to go.  
_

* * *

“It’s like repeatedly hurling yourself at a brick wall,” Adam explained to Blue. “No, actually. At least that would crack your skull open and produce a result.”  
  
The week had trickled by rather quickly, and if Adam didn’t consider himself as adamant as he did, he probably would’ve thrown his hands up and requested for a replacement, preferably someone with a military background, who was qualified to deal with borderline psychosis and perhaps even violent outbursts.

Adam himself had thought he’d dealt with the whole spectrum of cases, begrudgingly carrying on with even the most hostile of clients.

Ronan wasn’t hostile per say. More like soulless, impetuous, infuriating... All of these things became the bulk of the horror that was this case, rendering Ronan even worse than any of his predecessors.

Adam thought that Declan had highly understated how difficult Ronan was going to be. There wasn't a cooperative vein in his body.  
  
He was deeply uninterested in putting the essential time and effort into his own well-being, so much so that Adam wondered if he cared for a future at all. It was such a foreign concept to Adam - this incessant desistance and the refusal to participate in his own life - that it shocked him to his very core.

This vision of a refurbished future where he no longer had to live in fear or violation of his father’s shadow, which even now, a 300 something miles away, followed and scratched away at him, was the only thing that got him out of bed in the morning.  
  
He’d spent this entire week attempting to break down these steel walls that Ronan had built up around him and _nothing_.

The first couple of days had flown by with absolutely no signs of life from Ronan, who’d spent his time locked up in his room without coming out for so much as dinner or a shower.

Just when Adam had begun to grow seriously concerned that he was starving to death in there or slicing his wrists open in the bathtub, he’d clambered out of his room looking surprisingly healthy.  
  
It had turned out that he’d stacked up on junk food and sodas and had taken to camping out in his own room to get away from Adam, but Adam had gotten him to give up the charade immediately after that.

“Part of my job is to check up with you on a regular basis. I’m not supposed to leave you alone for longer than 2 hours and I’ve already given you all of the world’s space. Now it’s time that you start to cooperate with me. I don’t want to see that door locked again otherwise I’m going to consult your brother and have a duplicate key made. I'm not one for violating privacy, but I'll do it if you strike my last nerve."   
  
To this, Ronan replied something incoherently in Latin and then proceeded to flip him off before storming back into his room.

The next day, Adam went ahead and visited the Emerald Fields Rehabilitation Centre in Brooklyn where Ronan had spent the six months following his ‘incident’. He was hoping he could learn more about his client and his background by any means necessary.

The only way he was going to be able to connect with Ronan at all, would be if he learned something about him, but there was no law that stated the information had to come from Ronan himself.

Adam wasn’t completely blank, of course.  
  
The dossier told him facts. Ronan was about nineteen-years-old, born in Ireland. He had an older brother and a younger one, both of whom lived in Chicago, where Declan worked and had recently graduated college. Both of their parents were deceased.

His father, although the police refused to share the gritty details, had been, simply put - murdered, which was something Adam could understand was capable of messing with a mind enough to render it beyond repair.

Murder was the sort of thing you heard about in the news or saw on all those procedural shows, nobody ever thought it was something that would happen to them or to somebody that they knew or loved.

Ronan's mother, from Adam’s understanding, had soon after gone catatonic from the shock, a month after which she’d fallen into a deep coma that she unfortunately never woke up from.  
  
This back-to-back loss must have rattled Ronan in the worst way because he’d almost gotten arrested for engaging in a liquor-fueled bar fight almost right after. He’d been admitted to a rehab facility as part of a settlement deal coordinated by his brother and his lawyers after that and the incident where he’d been found bleeding out in his bed.  
  
Not only had Ronan been forced into the rehab, in addition to the therapy sessions that came standard with stays in rehab and the first two weeks in Suicide Watch, he was also required to go to anger management.

Adam had been with Ronan six days now, and he didn’t detect much anger. He didn’t detect much of any emotion out of him at all. There was the smugness, and the irritation he seemed to harbor towards Adam. Pathological narcissist would be his initial diagnosis. Or Major-League Asshole, in layman’s terms.

Adam predicted that Ronan’s apathy was what was ultimately going to be the end of him if he didn't manage to get through to him.

When Adam had consuled his doctor, Mr. Jonathan Burkley, he’d merely shook his head in weary silence.

“First off, I am not obliged to discuss the intimate details of any of my patients, and second, even if I could, there would be nothing I could tell you about Mr. Lynch. Yes, I saw him for three hours every week, but not once did he speak to me during any of our sessions. He was practically a mute.”

It turned out, he hadn’t breathed a word at any of the anger management sessions either.

Through the course of the next few days, Ronan only engaged with Adam for drug tests, which he was finally complying to, albeit reluctantly. Whenever he did speak directly to Adam (despite all of his laboured attempts) it was always in another language and seemed to hold a significant bulk of innuendo that Adam couldn’t quite understand.

When given half the chance, he would ignore Adam, choosing to pretend like he didn’t exist at all. His routine hadn’t changed for all the days they’d been together so far and he hadn’t even left the house once.

Adam supposed he hadn’t the need to, considering he had Anita, who would take care of all the groceries and toiletries and any other miscellaneous needs he might have.

When Adam was off at school or class, Anita would stay with Ronan in his stead.  
  
Adam was grateful for her, because he wouldn’t know what to do without her at this point.

Despite the way Ronan continued to make Adam’s blood boil, he didn’t want to label him a lost cause, at least not just yet. There was an appropriate amount of heavy lingering sadness that seemed to accompany everything around Ronan, and Adam was confident that there was more to him than what met the eye.

He was intelligent, too, he’d gathered. Adam had caught him reading in his spare time, weighty books written by recognizable authors. Sometimes he’d solve every single one of the Times’ crossword puzzles, and get each one astonishing right.

There were questions on that thing that even Adam didn’t know the answers to, but he figured ponderance was a luxury someone like Ronan, with so much time to kill, could afford.

Sometimes he’d literally catch Ronan sprawled on the floor in the kitchen, bare-chested in his sweatpants and counting the tiles. Adam didn’t want to give up, not just yet.  
  
“Maybe he needs a good push,” Blue said, but her lip curled suggestively at that last word. She broke into a smile of false innocence before continuing. “Should I come talk to him for you?”  
  
Blue had come to his college to visit him during the little window that he had after lunch and before fourth period. They were sprawled out in the lawn behind the school. Adam munched on a tuna sandwich and Blue had her head rested in his lap as she picked on the warm grass and blew dandelions.

She was in an outlandishly bright green dress with a crocheted hem and a baby pink bow through the middle. The collar was sequenced with little fabric roses in different shades of pastels. Her hair was done in two impeccably tiny braids, which seemed rather unnecessary considering her choppy locks spilled out from above her head in a fountain of dark curls, regardless of them.

Anyone else would've looked ridiculous, but Blue carried all her outfits off like a pretty little forest elf.   
  
“We want to promote his health not deplete it, remember?” Adam said.  
  
“What kind of implication is that?” Blue asked, mocking outrage with an audible plop of the mouth.

Adam chuckled dryly. “Just that you’re five feet of utter terror and I wouldn’t want to have him shit his pants.”  
  
“Something tells me that the vulture isn’t afraid of abstractly anything.”  
  
“Which one of us is the Psych student?”  
  
“I really wish it wasn’t you. I feel like I couldn’t get you to skip a class to save my life. My _life_ , Adam. What if I was taken on my way back home by a couple of gun-toting maniacs and they strapped me with a bomb vest, then called you up and told you to get your butt over to them to keep me alive in the middle of a lecture? I’d be a terrorist happy meal by the time you’d arrive!”  
  
“First of all, my phone’s usually on silent during classes so I wouldn’t even hear it ring let alone pick up. Secondly, if they were hauling guns, they wouldn’t need the bomb. Third, I’m not your emergency contact, your mother is, and even if your mother happened to be out of service, they wouldn’t get to me until they virtually crossed out every single one of the women in your family.”  
  
Blue made a grouchy face and stuck her tongue out at him. “You get so caught up in technicalities,”

“Okay, after all these years of knowing you, I know what you want from me, Sargent. So regardless of any of that you  _are_ practically my only friend and I would deck a professor if I had to just to keep you. Happy?”  
  
Blue broke into a devilish little grin that make his heart lighter. “See? That’s much better to hear.”

“You’re a little bit of an asshole, anyone ever told you that?” he asked, lovingly.  
  
“Only periodically.” She grinned.  
  
Adam was immensely reassured by having Blue at his side, constantly cheering him on. For the longest time their friendship had been a bit of a fixer-upper, by which he meant they’d been plagued by the paramounting awkwardness that sprouted from the fact that they used to go out.

Not to mention sometimes the two of them were so similar when it came to their maturity and stubbornness that they’d often gotten into fights, but with all of that in the past now, they were as tight as ever, and it kept Adam grounded. Reminded him that he still had well-wishers.

It was difficult, after growing up in an abusive family, to regard your own self-worth.

Blue was there, his anchor, to remind him that he mattered, that he was allowed to feel what he felt, and that he owed himself this life he was cultivating.

Blue and Adam parted ways after the bell rang. “The offer still stands,” she muttered, as she dusted off her dress and twirled on her heel. “If you need me to come spook him.”  
  
Adam nodded and promised to call. Blue said they’d see each other again very soon, not as a psychic, but as she put it ‘as a clingy conspirator’ and disappeared into the crowd of students making their way up and out of the college building.  
  
When he got home, much to his surprise, Ronan spoke to him for the first time ever in actual English, which was five times the improvement he had come to expect.

“I need to fucking get out of here,” Ronan said, with palpable urgency.  
  
“Wow. You’re talking,” Adam snapped, deadpan. “And in English, too. Was there an update in your programming while I was away or is this like one of those movies where I accidently walk into a parallel universe?”  
  
Ronan shot him a scrutinizing glare. “Good. You’re funny. I’ll have some on-the-go entertainment.”  
  
That was when Adam noticed the difference in Ronan’s appearance. Gone were the sweatpants and the baggy t-shirts (when he chose to wear a shirt, that was), to be replaced with a dark muscle tee, expensive denims with a couple holes in them that looked to be on purpose rather than due to wear and tear, and a leather jacket. He even smelled like cologne and aftershave.  
  
The change was so distinct and so unexpected that Adam’s heart actually sank as he realized this probably had nothing to do with the quality of his companionship or the comfort of his presence and everything to do with a potential surge of bipolarity.  
  
“Where are we going?” Adam asked.  
  
“Out.” Ronan responded, helpfully.  
  
Adam rolled his eyes but remained glued in his spot, turning his body into an obstacle in between Ronan and freedom. “We’re not going anywhere until you tell me exactly where you want to go and why you suddenly decided to actually acknowledge my existence.”  
  
Ronan yanked his shoes on and huffed, eyes dark and twinkling. He was doing that thing where he attempted to make Adam spontaneously combust using nothing but his brain waves and that death stare of practiced menace. When Adam didn’t cripple under the weight of his lour, Ronan groaned.

“Look man, here’s the deal. I don’t need you and I don’t want you. How much is my patronising bastard of a brother paying you? I’ll triple it. You clearly need the money and all _I_ need is for you to get out of my way. Figuratively and literally. Please be so kind as to take the money, throw yourself a party, throw your whole family a party. Take this as a six-week vacation. I don’t care, just leave me alone and nobody has to tell Declan. It’s a win-win.”

Adam gaped at Ronan like he might as well be speaking Latin again.

“I will do no such thing,” Adam said, carefully, once he’d gotten over his disbelief. “And it’s frankly insulting that you’d think I’d accept your money. I have principles, you know.”  
  
“Principles, shimciples. Everyone shreds their dignity for the right amount of dough. Seriously, just name your price and we can both go our separate ways and pretend this never happened.”  
  
“If you never wanted me in the first place, then why didn’t you just save me the time and energy and let me know on the first day I got here?”  
  
A diabolic grin spread lazily across his features. Adam wanted to knock it right off his face. “I would answer that, but I’d rather leave you hanging because that would frustrate you and your frustration appeases me. Aren’t I a pest? Oh, here’s a lovely thought. I’m actually paying you to wash your hands off of me.”

Hot anger bubbled in Adam’s stomach, but he bit it down because he knew that yelling at his clients was unprofessional and fairly counterproductive. Wasn’t this why he’d become a sober companion in the first place? So other Adams didn’t have to go home to future Roberts?

Adam sighed, running a thumb over his right eyebrow contemplatively. “You think I haven’t had clients in the past who’ve tried to bribe me away?”

“Nah, but you can bet your ass I’ve got more cash than any of them could even dream of.”  
  
_Arrogant, entitled snob_ , Adam thought.

He said, “No.”  
  
It was simple and clear and precise but he made sure the word was as heavy and empathic as he could manage.

They had a quick staring match. Ronan was skilled at staring, Adam had quickly gathered. Even before he’d started to directly speak to him, he would shoot Adam looks all the time. Each one weightier than the last. It was the ocular equivalent of being shot right in between the eyes.

He was good, Adam would give him that.  
  
He wasn’t good enough to break Adam.  
  
Enough had tried, none had gotten away with it. Not even his own father. Adam couldn’t hear in one of his ears, he had scars that would fade but never go away burned into his abdomen. He’d been punched, kicked, smacked. He’d had cigarettes licking at his flesh. He’d rose above it and now he stood here, in front of Ronan Lynch, unbreakable.  
  
Ronan wasn’t stupid. He gathered this instantly.  
  
So he shrugged. “It’s your funeral, but alright,” he muttered. “Now let’s _go_.”  
  
_“Where?”_ Adam repeated, a little louder this time.  
  
Ronan sighed, clearly, Adam was getting on his nerves. There was a part of Adam that felt a surreal amount of satisfaction over that. It was nice to know that he wasn’t dealing with an inanimate object anymore. It was especially nice to give him a little bit of a taste of his own poison.

If he could be rattled, he could also be reached, and that was the most important thing.  
  
“I thought the point of you was to do what I want to do.”  
  
Adam swallowed a scoff. He sounded like a petulant child.  
  
“The _point_ of me,” Adam said, “is to help you maintain your sober lifestyle outside of rehab and give you the tools to continue with your recovery.”  
  
“So where would _you_ have us go, Thou Holier One?” Ronan mocked.  
  
“I was thinking, now that you’re talking and willing to leave the comfort of your home, that we could go to a group therapy session.”  
  
Ronan chuckled dryly. “You really are funny. It’s like having the circus folk around.”  
  
Adam felt a stab in his gut, it was his pride, waiting to get the best of him. He bit it down. He’d left that chapter of his life behind. He wasn’t going to give in to vainglorious emotions anymore.

“Look, participating is also part of the deal. These groups and meetings are proven to help people maintain abstinence and grow within their recovery. I won’t be around forever, you know.”  
  
“Glad to hear it, when are you leaving again?” Ronan smirked.  
  
His continued sarcasm was beginning to give Adam a headache. “If you want to go somewhere else right now, I’ll play ball, alright? But you have to promise to accompany me for a group session tomorrow - and don’t even try to back out of it or I’ll haul you straight back to rehab.”  
  
“And you think lunches in cafes where we all talk about our feelings will make me _not_ want to abuse again?” he asked, cocking a sharp eyebrow.  
  
Adam broke into a soulless smile of his own. Fire with fire, that’s how it was going to be.

“Don’t forget my position over you. Whatever I report to your brother determines what happens to you next. Do you _really_ want to test the patience of somebody who if you think about it... practically has your fate in their hands?”  
  
To Adam’s surprise, instead of getting furious, which was what he’d expected. A rebuke. Maybe another snarky comment. Ronan actually obliged, nodding his head as he awaited for Adam to step aside and follow him out.  
  
“Interesting,” he said. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet,” he added, with a grin like death.  
  
Adam didn’t understand. Maybe this was all just a game to him. A shamble to pass the time in this ostensibly boring existence that he’d been living. Adam was just glad he’d finally been able to pin something down about the other boy.  
  
He followed Ronan out, closing the door behind him.  
  
It was a fairly overcast day, the sun peeking in and out of a cluster of capering clouds. Adam remained on Ronan’s tail until they stopped right next to a small roadster, its silver paint job gleaming in the frosty light. Adam moved closer. “Is this yours?”  
  
Ronan didn’t reply, merely stood there a moment, lost in thought or something. Adam couldn’t help but instinctively lean out and get the feel of the beautiful thing. He ran a hand over the smooth silver surface of the car, feeling the energy of the vehicle rustling under his touch.  
  
“Mercedes-Benz SLR,” he cited, staring at the hood, imagining the engine that was housed underneath. “I thought they stopped making these in 2008. No wait, the last of the coupes were made in 2007, but the roadster version wasn’t discontinued until 2008. Right. My bad.” He muttered, talking to himself.

Ronan shot him a curious look, before nodding. “It doesn’t handle as well as the 722 because-”  
  
“The extra weight from the roof,” Adam interjected. The top of the convertible was drawn up, despite the nice day outside.

“She goes 0 to 60 in 3.5,” Ronan said. “Too bad we can’t give her a swing, since I’m on a legal diet.”  
  
“Wait… What?”  
  
Ronan smiled, it was a vicious smile, one that tugged on either side of Adam. When he realized the implication in his words, he leaped back in horror.

“This isn’t your car, is it?”

Ronan took immense glee in this, breaking into a hearty laugh. “Watching you ogle and then squirm was just too much fun to give up. I might have just found myself a sobriety activity that I’ll actually enjoy.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Adam stated, still a little horrified.  
  
“Easy there, tiger,” Ronan said, still grinning madly, as he led him to his actual car, which was an equally impressive shark-nosed BMW, sleek as the night. This one, he could believe was Ronan’s, but he remained prudent until after Ronan had slung the keys into the ignition and whirred the engine to life. As Adam hopped shotgun, he gawked at Ronan.  
  
“You knew exactly how fast that car runs. I’d chalk it up to your substantial interest in cars but somehow I doubt that,” Adam considered. “Where did you learn to hotwire a car?”  
  
Ronan’s grin had vanished, but there was still a sheen of smugness to his face. “You’ll find out soon enough,” he said, voice low, _dangerously_ low.  
  
Adam felt his heart drop in his chest as they pulled out of the parking lot, the car shuddering against Ronan’s hasty handle of the steering wheel, practically taking flight.  
  
On second thought, maybe he’d liked it better when Ronan Lynch had been mute.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i would really appreciate more comments on your thoughts on the story so far!! it's going to be a little bit of a long ride, so i do hope y'all will stick with me on this.  
> \- check out my [tumblr](winterblues.tumblr.com) maybe?  
> \- i hope i've kept the characters as in-character and believable as possible, because this AU is obviously slightly different than most and really deviates in the sense of the way things turned out after Ronan's father was killed, all i can say is i promise things will start making sense if they aren't already. :)


	3. Nightcall

_"I sit up in the dark drenched in longing. I am carrying over a thousand names for blue that I didn't have at dusk." - Joy Harjo_

* * *

They’d been driving for over twenty minutes now, and they’d been stuck in traffic for eighteen. It wasn't until Ronan took a quick gaping shortcut that they made it out of the jam. These new roads were less populated and Adam realized he’d long since left the heart of the city behind when the suburban embroidery of the roads stretched out in front of him.

The nostalgia of them sunk in like a mouthful of acrid saltwater.

It was nothing but endless dusty roads and a blur of trees on either side. Blankness and dirt and asphalt and sky. The sun was way past its meridian and was just beginning to make its descent for the day.

Adam felt queasy, partially because of Ronan’s vehement driving, but mostly because of how much these roads reminded him of home.

Momentarily, he was back again. A little boy who didn’t know any better in a little town that couldn’t care less about what he knew.

Momentarily, he was back in the driver’s seat learning how to drive a rusty jalopy that ate precious fuel like a bear, with his father sitting shotgun, eyes like graves and a mouth equally filthy. “You’re not getting out of this fucking car until you learn how to ride a stick. No boy of mine can be seen driving some pansy ass automatic.”

He remembered every knuckle in the throat until he could feel the metallic taste of his own blood in his mouth. Every time he took a wrong turn or parked slightly crooked or hit the brakes too soon.

There was a mark on him for every mistake he’d made, and Adam had been convinced his entire existence was a mistake.

Sometimes, on really bad days, his father would say, “he’s the only thing god never created,” that was when Adam had stopped believing in churches and gods.

Most of the rubbish that came out of Robert Parrish’s mouth, Adam had gotten used to. He’d adjusted to the prison of his reality like a reluctant and tired inmate, he was even growing numb to most of it, but that had been an insult Adam had felt in his bones.

When he’d finally learnt to drive, when he’d finally been able to name a car’s model merely by the sound of its engine, he’d felt so triumphant he’d almost thrown up.

It’d been a reminder that he wasn’t good-for-nothing after all. When he’d taken to those roads again, he’d never looked back.

He took a deep breath and pushed all of the negative thoughts of home and strife behind. Reminding himself that he’d made it out, that he was not in Henrietta, that he was far far away and everything had changed and would continue to.

There would come a day his past couldn’t snipe at him, Adam just hoped it would get here sooner rather than later.

“Where are we going?” he asked, just to drown his thoughts with some kind of noise.

Ronan didn’t bother responding, just like he hadn’t bothered responding the last twenty-four times he’d asked. Instead, he just turned up the volume of the heavy electronic music that he’d been blasting since they’d pulled out of the driveway.

Adam could barely make out the lyrics as a red-throated, furious male voice shouted about death and demons and unbelievers to a pumping bass that made everything inside the car vibrate like a heart attack.

Adam would’ve been thankful for once, that he was deaf in one ear, if it wasn’t for the crippling fear that he was going to lose his hearing in the second one too.

“Is this supposed to be therapeutic?” he asked, over the music.

If Ronan heard him, he was flat out ignoring him.

Adam repeated his question, louder this time.

Still nothing. The voice on the radio continued to croon hypnotically, there was a palpable pain in his voice, a tension like a sling before it was set loose or a wave rising but with no pleasure of release. The entire song was a buildup without a fallout.

Adam turned the music off.

This caught Ronan’s attention. His eyes were shrapnels. “The fuck, man?”

He raised his free hand to flick it back on but Adam put his own over it. Ronan’s hand froze in mid-air. “When I ask you a question, I expect you to answer it. You are not turning back into a wall. Do you understand me?”

Ronan jerked his hand off rather irritably.

“I’ll answer your questions when your questions are less stupid and more substance.”

Adam considered himself a fairly patient person, but even Gandhi, if he were still alive, would probably find himself whittling away against Ronan’s shrewd barkings. It was like bringing guns to a fist fight, frustrating and most likely fatal.

“I simply asked if you find it therapeutic.”

“Therapy is a farce.”

“Well, I’m glad to know that you at least have opinions.”

Ronan scoffed.

“It means that there’s actually something human buried underneath all of that menace and leather.” Adam said pointedly.

“I was going to say that you remind me of this school counselor I once had - whose mouth I wanted to gauge shut with a stapler, by the way - but then you say things like that and I get confused,” Ronan muttered.

“I’m your companion, not your life coach.”

“More like glorified babysitter. How much, again, is my brother paying you to ‘handle’ me?”

“That isn’t relevant to the conversation.”

“This isn’t even a fucking conversation.”

Ronan turned the music back on, and this time, he tuned the volume up to max. Adam groaned but decided that he’d poked the beast enough for now and went back to staring out the window, silently hoping Ronan wasn’t taking him to an abandoned warehouse or to a red light district or worse… a biker bar on the edge of the city.

Adam was genuinely surprised once Ronan pulled into a gravel wasteland in the middle of nowhere.

He was less surprised when he registered the loud music and the rancid stench of cigarette smoke filtering in through the rolled down car window on Ronan’s side and the people - all drinking or smoking or making out, dressed in neons and leather jackets and combat boots.

Everyone was either tattooed or pierced or both.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Adam said beneath his breath.

It looked exactly like the shady kind of place where you went to get hooked up with weed and hand grenades and god-knows-what-else. It also looked illegal enough to make Adam’s stomach clench.

The field was studded with floodlights and strung with tattered bunting made colorless by months of exposure. Everything was gaslight and kerosene, smoke and engines purring seductively like skittish animals.

Ronan killed the engine and stretched back in his seat.

“What is this?” Adam asked, despite himself. “You’re not indulging in any debauchery.”

“Don’t worry, Ponyboy,” Ronan said. “I’m not here to party.”

Adam shot him a grave look. “Am I stupid or am I stupid?”

“I’m here to race.”

Adam chuckled dryly until he realized he was actually dead serious. He stopped abruptly, staring at Ronan like he’d sprouted another head.

“Is that supposed to make me feel any better about this?”

“I don’t care how you feel.”

“You’re not doing this. We’re not doing this. I won’t let you.”

“My brother may have paid you to be a constant pain in my ass, but your job isn’t to boss me around. I’ll do as I fucking please.”

“I did not sign up for this.” Adam sighed.

“Guess what, Peter Pan. Nor did I, but here we are.” Ronan said, sharply.

“I don’t have to tell you that this is dangerous, right?”

Ronan broke into a smile that was all teeth and no feeling. The white light shown from outside painted him a brazen ghost. “You catch on fast.”

“I’m willing to gamble that’s the point?” he’d meant it as a question but it turned into a statement somewhere in between the frenzied look on the other boy’s face and Adam’s regard for his own intelligence.

“Look,” Ronan said, with a sigh. His eyes were trained on the chaotic scene ahead of him. Searching. For someone or something. “You don’t have to be attached at my hip when I go into a tailspin.”

“I’m supposed to be by your side at all times.”

“I won’t tell dad if you won’t.” Ronan’s eyes were ashen ice.

He was still staring straight ahead, face rendered searchlight.

Adam opened his mouth to ask, but closed it when Ronan caught his movement from his peripheral and waved him off with a quick dismissive hand gesture.

Instead, Adam followed his gaze to a ghastly white Mitsubishi parked in the heart of the sea of humming cars and music and people like an island of its very own. T he clamorous bass pulsing through the soles of Adam’s shoes and up to his brain was coming from none other than that very car, drowning out even Ronan’s stereo.  
  
Adam watched with equal parts horror and awe as a slender and lean silhouette slithered its way out of the car. It was a slinky boy wearing an air-tight white tank top and a smile like drowning oneself in acid.

The sun had gone down by the time that they’d arrived at this disruption in the midst of nowhere, the sky was a smudge of grey-blue overhead.

“Who wears sunglasses at night?” Adam couldn’t help himself as he realized that the boy was headed straight for them, and even though Adam couldn’t see the boy’s eyes through the dark tint of his white-rimmed sunglasses, he had a feeling he was looking right at Ronan.

“Bulgarian mobster Jersey trash pieces of shit like him,” Ronan replied.

“You two seem chummy,” Adam remarked.

“That’s Joseph Kavinsky, but we don’t take his first name. It’s an insult to the Gospels.”

Adam looked back up at the approaching figure. Kavinsky lurched to a stop right by Ronan’s BMW and leaned right into the car, resting his elbows against the open car window. He smelt like pot and privilege. A cigarette lounged at the corner of his mouth as he peered in, he only had eyes for Ronan as he broke into the sleaziest grin Adam had ever encountered.

“Lynch,” he sang the name joyfully, lingered on it, even.

“I would’ve thought I was tripping if it wasn’t for my fifty pairs of eyes, but now that we’ve established your authenticity, I must ask, to what do I owe this absolute pleasure?” as he finished his sentence, he blew smoke right into Ronan’s face.

His clients weren’t even supposed to be passive smoking, let alone have smoke forced down their throats. Failure was as horrid a taste in Adam’s mouth as the polluted air.

Ronan’s voice was lightning before a storm. “You can owe it to my urge to drop down to the swamps every once and awhile, just to make sure the crocodiles are being fed.”

Kavinsky laughed; soulless and harsh as a tractor as he yanked his sunglasses up to his forehead to look Ronan right in the eyes, but his gaze caught on Adam instead. His upper lip quirked.

“New play thing?” when Ronan didn’t answer, he pushed on. “What, you weren’t satisfying Ganseyboy enough in bed? Now that I think about it, he does seem like the primadonna type.”

Whoever this Gansey was, the name clearly struck a chord with Ronan, who was a wildfire as he dug his fingers into Kavinsky’s collar and yanked him back with enough force that the other boy visibly stumbled, before pushing the door open and dismounting the vehicle to grab Kavinsky by the throat.

Adam, alarmed, leapt out of the car as well. He couldn’t let Ronan beat someone up so soon after his stint at rehab.

“Ronan,” he called. “Stop!”

But Ronan barely heard him as he inched his face so close to Kavinsky’s that their chins almost touched. His mouth was a thin electric line. “You know what, man?” he said. “I’d break your nose again but it still looks a little crooked from the last time I decked your ass and I’m _really_ trying to be considerate.”

Kavinsky merely chortled shamelessly, amusement flickering in his eyes. “It’s cool, man. It’s cool. I brought my trophy wife too. In fact,” he continued. “I brought the whole family.”

One, three, five shadows stepped into the light. Adam didn’t have to look at their faces, he could tell they were Kavinsky’s rat pack. Adam felt like he’d walked into someone’s idea of a dirty joke. Kavinsky might as well have been wearing a neon sign that read ‘Parental Advisory Explicit Content’.

He despised people like Joseph Kavinsky, they were like countries with no borders, wild and turbulent; plagued with invading substances that fried their brains and derailed their already vestigial senses of morality into a collision course of narcotics.

These were people who’d fallen straight down the rabbit hole, passed rockbottom on the way and persevered all the way down the drop.

Adam disliked them instantly. They were nowhere near the worst society had to offer (he still reserved that position for the budding politicians and the diplomats, the plutocratic monkeys who danced at any opportunity to leech money from), but they were definitely up there.

Adam had a lot of experience with drug abusers, but he had no respect for people who might as well have been born with knives attached to their fingers.

Kavinsky and his troops were not just subversive, they were clearly downright suicidal. They didn’t care about getting better.

They didn’t care if they were here tomorrow or if they were hurting anyone else as they blew up the world around them. All they did was revel in the placating high of the fury, the fire, the now.

If people like Joseph Kavinsky somehow miraculously managed to make it to their forties, they turned into the Robert Parrishs of the world. Adam didn’t think Ronan was one of them, but he did believe that Ronan was drawn to them like a moth to the flame.

There was an underlying sense of unpredictability and upheaval to them that he obviously craved.

Ronan didn’t look intimidated by the unspoken threat in Kavinsky’s words, instead they only seemed to incite him further. Adam knew that he couldn’t keep somebody like Ronan on a leash, but he had to at least try and pacify him a little whenever he could.

He rounded past the car and touched one, firm hand to Ronan’s upper arm. Ronan tensed but didn’t turn around, his eyes still dead set on Kavinsky’s, promising eruptions.

“Ronan don’t, come on.” Adam quietly urged. “You just got out of a shitstorm don’t dive headfirst back in. _Please_ ,”

Ronan stood there with his fist secured around Kavinsky’s throat for a few more destabilizing seconds before violently wheeling back and spitting on the asphalt by Kavinsky’s feet, his expression still incendiary. “What do you say we put the theatrics on hold and settle this with a little more speed,” he suggested.

Kavinsky’s smile was empty and brimming at the same time. “Now we’re talkin’,” he said, coyly. He shot Ronan one more serial killer smile and pulled his tank over his head to reveal the concave length of his torso.

To somebody on his right, he said. “Porko. Pork Chops. Get me a joint, man.” Then his eyes were back on Ronan, one of his fingers trailing the length of his jugular where Ronan had seized him. “Damn, you left some paw prints,” he mumbled coquettishly. “Oh, Lynch. Would you kiss my wounds better? I can hardly race on an empty stomach."

Ronan pretended to think about it and then proceeded to lift up his middle finger, which he aimed at Kavinsky’s throat like a gun and mimed shooting.

Adam felt like he was watching a tsunami enfold in slow motion. “See you on the streets, then.” He said, echoing Ronan’s reaction with a slurring boom.

As Kavinsky chuckled once again and turned on his heel to head to his car, Adam stepped in front of Ronan, blocking his way to the BMW.

Ronan blinked into his face like he was just reminded of Adam’s existence.

“Don’t pay any heed to him,” he said, for Adam’s benefit. “The guy thinks he’s Renegade Jesus or something.” Ronan scoffed, before adding to his sentence a vivid array of curse words.

Adam sighed. “It’s not him I’m worried about,”

“Aw. Touching,” Ronan said, pressing a hand to his heart. “But like I said, this is something I’ve got to do. Think of it as… Diversion therapy. That’s your favorite word, isn’t it? Therapy? Well, this is kind of a healing practice for me. Surely you can understand that.”

“Ronan -”

“We could drop it and go home but then I’d get all agitated and who knows? I could spiral into a big bad relapse.”

Adam gaped at him as he mentioned That Which Should Not Be Named.

“You know you can’t drop that word like a bomb in my lap!”

 _“Relapse! RE-LAP-SE.”_ He continued, like he was reading a child a ghost story with a flashlight beneath his chin. That silenced Adam.

“These are my night-to-night activities, Adam. This is me getting back into the swing of things. I’ve been itching for a good ol’ drag race ever since I got dismissed to the looney bin. Now you gonna foolishly try and give me time out or you gonna get outta my way?”

Adam sighed, nervously running little circles with his finger lightly over his temple.

“Fine. If you get us killed, just remember that you’ll be stuck with me in the afterlife.”

Ronan looked puzzled for a second, then a slow grin swept over his dark and majestic features.

“See,” he said, more to himself than to Adam. “I knew there was something interesting about you.”

“Oh I am humbled, Your Highness.” Adam mocked.

Adam stepped aside and Ronan slid back into his car. Adam followed him into the dark, silently praying for a miracle. He had no idea what he was getting himself into, but there was a quiet, uncontained thrill furling in his stomach like a poisonous flower and for some reason, he couldn’t quite squash it.

* * *

Tires squealed. Engines roared. Adam wondered if he was about to witness his life in flashes.

Ronan had his foot firmly planted on the clutch, his expression was a maze of indecipherable notions, his face was bathed in the searing red grimace of the traffic light overhead. Adam could feel his heart burning in his chest. Outside, people had gathered in slimy hoards to watch. All cheering like hungry fans at a stadium.

Everything was reduced to the flighty and restless seconds before blast off. Adam readjusted his seatbelt for the fifth time.   
  
“Live a little, Parrish,” Ronan said.   
  
“Not if I die a lot.”   
  
Ronan let out a short laugh, it was more a rumble that somehow echoed in Adam’s chest than sound. He was probably just confusing it with the revved up engine or his own ragged breaths. They waited for the green together.   
  
The Mitsubishi pulled up besides them, the bass still pumping like blood. Kavinsky shot Ronan a smirk. “I see it’s a threesome,”   
  
Adam paid him no heat, but he was already inching a hand towards Ronan’s, which rested tight enough on the gearshift that his knuckles had gone white. To Adam’s utter relief, Ronan didn’t react to Kavinsky’s derisive taunts, only responded, calmly. “It’s a pity you’ll never know what it’s like to have someone other than your own pathetic shadow riding shotgun.”   
  
Kavinsky pretended like he couldn’t hear him and impelled his stereo louder.   
  
Adam half-turned in his seat. “Can I ask you a quick question?”   
  
Ronan nodded his head.   
  
“I want a straight answer. No quipping or dismissing me.”   
  
“Now that depends on the question.”   
  
Adam sighed but pushed on. “You said this is therapeutic for you. Why?”   
  
Ronan’s voice was a double-edged sword. “Because everything else eats me alive.”   
  
The signal blinked to green. They took off like a meteor hurtling through stillborn sky. Adam’s heart had made its way into his mouth. The race was on.

By their side, Kavinsky’s car still lounged taunting and bright, his smile was a gash of pure menace. “You ready to fuck these bitches?”   
  
Ronan stomped the gas pedal hard and swerved so fast Adam thought he was going to lose his lunch. “You’re the one who’s fucked,” he called to Kavinsky. “Hold tight,” this was to Adam.  
  
The last thing Adam heard was Kavinsky’s primal and foreboding laugh as his car took off, a streak of light in front of them. Ronan didn’t look rattled. He was just getting started.  
  
“This is too good a car to wreck,” Adam muttered. 

“Don’t be so afraid to die,” Ronan replied, voice lost to the wind.  
  
Adam lost his train of thought after that. It was madness and lights and cars howling like wolves out for blood. The streets were snaking streams of blurring lines and broken glass. Ronan whooped with joy. Adam winced with nerves.   
  
It was this: asphalt maimed beneath their tires.   
It was this: headlights blinding eyes.   
It was this: the black maw of Kavinsky’s white shark.   
  
They were bodies electric.

Adam was just a body uncomfortable.  
  
He wanted to go home but taming Ronan was beginning to feel more and more like a bullfight and adrenaline was coursing through his every vein like cyanide. He didn’t know what to do with this unmistakable rush, this inexplicable feeling that he couldn’t name, couldn’t compartmentalize in the well-kempt world that Adam Parrish had poured so much into building.   
  
They accelerated at seemingly inhuman speeds. This guilty turn and that abandoned traffic rule. Endless streets and the car heating slow and gasoline splicing the air and wheels and wheels and wheels. When they got to the end of the line, Kavinsky’s heaving car burst in merely seconds behind Ronan’s BMW. It would’ve almost been a tie if not for Ronan’s risky and fairly unorthodox driving skills.   
  
Adam was just glad that he was still in one piece, his chest shuddered and he looked to Ronan, whose face was eaten by thrill. Jarring blue eyes wide, breaths heavy and shaking. He was a night car on a night road himself. Blazing through concrete. Tearing holes in the world.   
  
Adam himself was exhilarated, he felt more than a little hysterical as Ronan finally killed the engine. “That was…” he’d lost his words.   
  
Ronan understood, though, and shot him a genuine smile. The first genuine smile Adam had managed to manifest since they’d met. It was insane and dangerous but he’d finally gotten something real out of Ronan, something raw. Something he could work with.   
  
In that moment, Ronan felt just as real as the blood rushing through Adam’s ears and the smell of burnt tires scorching the ground.   
  
Kavinsky slammed his car door loud enough to startle them both out of their delirium.   
  
“Good run, punks,” he muttered. “But I was just warming up. Rematch?”  
  
Adam turned to Ronan, horrified, but to his surprise, Ronan merely drew his window up. " Go waste someone else’s time, jackass.”   
  
“You’re not fucking leaving, are you? You haven’t had your pills yet, and we both know what happens when you don't take your prescription.” There was a hint of something more than just a mere warning in his voice, something caged and clannish. Ronan stilled for a split second before shaking his head and training his eyes back on the road.

When Kavinsky realized his sniggered barking wasn’t producing a result, he snarled, ugly and menacing. “If that’s how you wanna play it, fuckweasel, then that’s how it’ll have to be. Just remember you’re digging your own damn grave!”   
  
Adam thought Kavinsky’s pathetic attempts to get a rise out of Ronan were merely to make him stay a little longer. It was obvious to Adam that he was invested in Ronan in some strange way. Maybe it was even a genuine interest buried under layers and layers of pure psychosis. Either way, Ronan didn’t seem to care for it at all.   
  
“You blow your new friend nice and hard for me, okay? I pinky swear I won’t tell Gansey!” Kavinsky called out, but Ronan had already whirled the engine back to life and the next thing Adam knew they were sprinting away.   
  
Adam peered at the rearview mirror, Kavinsky blew them a dramatic kiss goodbye before turning on his heel, then he was a spec in the distance.   
  
“Are we going home?” Adam asked, voice a little askew from all the adrenaline still drumming inside of him. Ronan shook his head with a small smirk. “Yeah, I’ll respect your bedtime.”   
  
“Thank you,” Adam said, and he meant it. It was crazy that he meant it, considering the absolute whirlwind Ronan had just put him through. “Thank you, too,” Ronan said without meeting his eyes, upsurging Adam’s surprise to an all-time high. “For putting up with that rodent and indulging my whims.”   
  
“As long as we’re not doing this again for another… ever _._ ”   
  
“Make it a week and we’ve got a deal.”   
  
Adam stared at Ronan, who just laughed. His laugh was fleeting but strong enough to drown out the voice of scorn in his head. It was soft and real. Two words that Adam wouldn’t have even dreamt he’d ever be able to associate with a creature like Ronan Lynch. This was proof that there was something worth investing into here. This was proof that he was getting through to him.   
  
It would be a slow and agonizing process, but Adam had adhered to painstaking processes all of his life. This was a challenge he was willing to commit to, if Ronan would let him.   
  
They spent the ride back in easy silence. Adam got home and collapsed into bed, not even bothering to change out of his jeans. He set a timer for class the next morning and closed his eyes to the strangely lulling sounds of Ronan’s music system singing chaotically from downstairs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- yes this entire chapter was my lil tribute to the dream thieves, probably my fave book in the series  
> \- i swear by the end of the fic he'll go from the snake to the sweet farm boy we all love from the raven king, but considering the situation in the realm of this AU, it only makes sense for that transition to take awhile. (with adam's influence, no doubt.) ;)  
> \- the comment about the car being too good to wreck was actually taken from the foxhole court, a series that has left me in pieces btw. 10/10 would recommend. it'll gut-punch you a hundred times in a dozen different ways. also, kudos to you if you caught that reference. we can be friends now.  
> \- PLEASE LEAVE ME A COMMENT ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK down below :)  
> \- p.s if you happen to be on tumblr & you happen to like editing it would be super cool if you'd maybe wanna make an edit based on this fic and tag me in it? my tumblr username is winterblues!


	4. Insatiable Beasts

_There is a rebel in me - the Shadow-Beast. It is that part of me that hates constraints of any kind, even those self-imposed. At the last hint of limitations on my time or space by others, it kicks out with both feet. Bolts. - Gloria Anzaldua_

* * *

“Hi, my name is Marsha Young and I’m an addict.”   
  
“Hello Marsha,” the group chorused, Adam played along, Ronan did not.

“Heroin had consumed my life. I have two kids and a job at a law firm to maintain but I'd been hanging on by a thread. This was during the most troubling of times, too. I’d just found out that my husband had been cheating on me with my step-sister, um… we barely had enough money to pay the mortgage and my daughter kept falling ill. Instead of being the pillar of support and strength for my sagging family to lean on, I found myself crumbling beneath all the pressure. I was at a precipice and I thought heroin was the only thing keeping me from falling...”

“I have been doomed to a fate worse than death,” Ronan drawled theatrically, diverting Adam’s attention from the lamenting lady who’d taken centre stage. “I swear if I have to take another second of this I’m going to spontaneously combust.”

Adam rolled his eyes from his seat besides Ronan, who was sprawled arrogantly on the comically small plastic fold-up chair they’d been provided with.

He had his legs spread out in front of him, his ankles crossing over one another, his right leg was bobbing rather feverishly. His arms hung loosely over his middle like he was going to be sick. He kept turning a shiny little lighter around in his left hand, one he’d snagged off his dashboard. His expression was dire.

“You promised you’d give it a chance,” Adam reminded.

“And I’m here, aren’t I? Now I want to leave before they start feeding on each other.”  
  
“Group therapy has proven to help most -”  
  
“Do I look like most people?” Ronan interjected, pointing up at his own face, his voice disgruntled. “This is a pathetic sob fest and it’s depressing. These low-lives just need an excuse to vent and complain about how unfair the world has been to them.”  
  
“It’s not about the sad stories, it’s about acceptance. Everyone here has gone through the same thing that you have. It’s where people come together to steady one another and remind each other that they’re not alone in their fight against their respective addictions.” Adam said.

“You sound like a fucking convent.”

“These people will understand you,”  
  
Something dark pooled over Ronan’s sharp features. “None of these sorry bastards understand jack shit about me, and if you thought for one second that they would, you don’t understand shit about me either.”  
  
Adam’s temper ignited a tiny fuse in his stomach, he swallowed it down. Adam wanted to say, _you haven’t exactly let me in, have you?_ He wanted to say, _y_ __ou’ve_ been hellbent on making this job as difficult for me as possible so really who’s the one to blame here? _ He wanted to say that he was dying to understand Ronan if Ronan would just let him.

Instead, he ran his hands over his face and said. “Just… Thirty more minutes?”

“And then, what? We’ll all hold hands around a fire and sing _Kumbaya_? Hard pass,” Ronan spat.

Adam sighed, and Ronan slouched in his seat. “Are you actually saying that if you were in my place, a bunch of weeping losers reciting poetry and quoting their self-help books at this poor excuse for a pity party would make you want to live? Because this is making _me_ want to commit mass homicide."

Adam was quiet. He couldn’t quite explain it to Ronan, because the truth wasn’t that simple. His job was to ease his clients back into the turbulent depths of society, vitalize them with motivational encouragements and slow nudges towards the light, but if he was being honest, he didn’t personally think much of these group therapy sessions himself.

If simple words and heartfelt gestures were enough to change a man’s ways, the world would have been a much better place.

Reality was always getting the short-end of the stick. Reality was loathsome and unforgiving. Reality was a slow and agonizing crawl towards gratification rather than a steady race and Adam unfortunately, knew it all too well.  

When Adam didn’t immediately reply, Ronan scoffed. “Would you listen to her? She’s thinking of converting to Buddhism,” he continued. “I’ve gotten better life tips out of The Catcher In The Rye, man.”

“What would you propose we do instead of attending these? It has to be something equally productive.”

“Gauging my eyes out with a fork would be more productive than this.”  
  
“Thanks for the input. Now answer the question like a mature person.”  
  
Ronan’s phone suddenly rang, saving him the brainstorming session and alarming everybody in the room. Adam mustered a sheepish wince. Phones were supposed to be either turned off or put on silent here and Ronan’s phone sang a mouthy and violent tune with several cuss words jammed into the modicum of seconds the ringtone would allow fit.

It was loud and garish and came across like a massive ‘fuck you’ to them all, disrupting the carefully constructed peace of the place.

Ronan threw his head back and laughed a moment before picking up the phone. He stood up fast enough that Adam felt spots dancing in front of his eyes just looking at him. He hushed the irked crowd with a quick dismissive gesture of the hand.

“I apologize for the intrusion, but it seems destiny calls,” he said, without missing a beat. “Namaste or whatever. I’m out bitches.” Ronan offered them a mock salute and stormed out of the room, phone pressed tightly to his ear.

Everyone else in the room had fallen silent.

Adam managed a mortified, rushed apology and speed-walked on after him.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Adam demanded as he caught up, but Ronan wasn’t listening.  
  
He’d stepped out through the double-doors into the regular bustle of the streets but had his head ducked, intently listening to whoever was on the other end of the line.

Adam sighed, more out of breath from the utter embarrassment than from the quick jog to keep up with Ronan, who was already turning a corner down the street.  
  
“No, it was perfect timing, actually,” he heard Ronan say. “I’ll see you in fifteen.”  
  
He cut the phone and threw it behind his shoulder at Adam, who he must have spotted stumbling at his tail from his peripheral. Adam caught the phone out of reflex and slipped it into his back pocket before wringing his wrist around Ronan’s arm and pulling him to a stop.  
  
“Ronan!”  
  
“What?” Ronan said, feigning confusion.

“You know _exactly_ what I’m going to say. So why don’t you spare me the breath?”  
  
“Come on, Parrish. It was a snoozefest in there. We’re escaping the torment.”  
  
“Escaping to where?”  
  
“We’re meeting a friend of mine,” he said vaguely, before giving Adam’s hand, which was still wrapped tightly around Ronan’s arm, a violent shake and continuing to walk towards his car.  
  
Adam thought to argue, but he knew that it would get him nowhere. It had been a miracle enough that he’d managed to drag Ronan to one of those things at all, so he wasn’t going to push his luck. Instead, he asked, with a small sigh. “Is it Gansey?”  
  
Ronan stopped short in front of him, leading Adam to almost walk right into his back. He stepped on his heel instead before backing away with an audible groan.  
  
“Psychic, are we,” Ronan sounded amused. “You are just a museum full of mysterious, Parrish.”  
  
“Kavinsky mentioned him,” Adam reminded.

Ronan resumed walking. “Plus, if you don’t mind me saying, you don’t seem the type to have a large circle of friends so I did the math and figured…” Adam pressed on.  
  
Ronan didn’t even pretend to take offense as he pulled his keys out of his pocket, unlocked the BMW and slid in. Adam rounded its rear and clambered into the passenger seat.

“People math,” Ronan muttered. “Oh, you’re very talented.”  
  
Adam said nothing. He’d been figuring out Ronan, peeling back layer after visible layer these past couple of weeks. Ronan still wasn’t giving him anything significant to work with, so Adam decided he would focus on the side of Ronan that he was willingly displaying.

Ronan had approximately two emotions that he didn’t mind disposing, anger and joy (unless you counted his native tongue of sarcasm). Ninety percent of which was always anger. Joy was more the subtle turn of his lips when he was lost to a maze of taillights and billboards, turning the highway into his throne.

It was what he got out of annoying the crap out of everybody else. It was only half of an emotion though, like a deferential portion of his joy was eaten up by a sadness he would never open up about. He also conveyed these emotions in either scorn, physical outbursts like punching holes in walls and slamming doors, or hostility.

If he did something nice for you, he’d try his damned hardest to wrap it up like a coincidence or an insult or both. The other night, Adam had fallen asleep on the couch with a hefty book lounged on his chest and his dinner accidently skipped. He woke up with a blanket covering half of his body, a brown paper bag of breakfast food from the nearest fast food joint sitting on the table and his book put neatly back into its place.

Ronan had floated down from upstairs, his lips pursed in annoyance. “I can’t cook for shit so you might as well eat that,” he said. “You know, before you get sick in my house and spread your nasty germs around.”

When Adam had quietly thanked him and asked him how much he owed him, Ronan merely shook his head. “I get my breakfast burritos for free, I have an arrangement with the girl who works the cashier.”

And when Adam was peeling off the blanket, Ronan had said, “I hope you keep that. I don’t like cashmere. Cruel to goats and all that.”

Ronan was also sleep-deprived a lot, and he would never let Adam catch him sleeping. Even though they’d been living under the same roof for almost two weeks now, Adam had yet to see him asleep. When he did sleep, he kept his door locked hard enough that Adam often wondered if it was deadbolted.

When he wasn’t making snide comments, snarling and shooting bullets of derisive taunts at Adam, he would shrink back into hermit mode and go practically mute.

Falling silent sometimes for days on end. He would also slip into Latin sometimes when he thought Adam wouldn’t understand, what he didn’t know was that Adam had taken Latin in High School and still had it as an elective language in college.

He was a little rusty, and he wasn’t half as good as Ronan, but he spent the time that he wasn’t studying up for Psych 101 or his prerequisites to rehearse the language and polish his grip on it.

Of course, he wasn’t going to tell Ronan that. He wanted him to keep carelessly throwing out his true feelings in Latin. It would help Adam understand him better.  
  
Somewhere buried underneath all the facades was a generous, emotive person, but whatever had happened to Ronan had left him practically allergic to even the idea of baring his soul to somebody else - which left the Ronan of insurmountable assholicness for Adam to deal with.  
  
Adam wasn’t going to underestimate Ronan’s tendency towards the mercurial and his inbred bullheadedness. Getting under his skin was going to be a grating task, but wasn’t everything in Adam’s life? He would just have to remain patient and keep adamantly at it until something gave way.  
  
“I’m just observant,” Adam replied, in his defense.  
  
Ronan turned up the music and didn’t bother communicating the whole ride towards wherever it was that they were going.

Adam had expressed his disapproval of Ronan’s angry electronica and death metal every chance he could spare, asking him why he was dead set on giving himself and everyone around him a seizure, but Ronan didn’t care for it.

When he finally slowed down and began to pull the car in reverse to park, Adam strained his neck and realized that they were at a very ancient very abandoned looking factory of some kind. It was musky and grey and looked a little like it belonged to a graphic novel about murder mysteries. A sign, worn by years of bad weather and pollution no doubt, faintly read ‘Monmouth Manufacturing’.

“What is this place?” Adam asked. “Is your friend a drug dealer or something?”  
  
_“Grandpa Gansey?”_ Ronan’s eyes were wide with delight. “A drug dealer? Ha! You have to tell him that one.”

It was not the answer Adam was expecting in the least. As they poured out of the car, unease settled in Adam’s chest, along with a ringing curiosity about this Gansey person. He had no idea what to expect. According to Kavinsky, Gansey and Ronan were apparently close, _very_ close.

Close enough that dropping his name had struck a nerve.

Most things didn’t strike a nerve with Ronan, Adam had been trying to get under his skin for days and Kavinsky had managed it within mere seconds.

Perhaps it was a good thing, Adam quickly realized, that he was finally meeting one of Ronan’s friends. It would help further his readings on Ronan and get a clearer picture. Maybe he could even ask this Gansey about what Ronan had been like before his father’s death and what he could do now to bring this Ronan a little closer to the person he used to be.  
  
“Walk faster or get left behind,” Ronan said, already halfway to the front entrance.  
  
“Thanks for asking nicely,” Adam replied dully, but kept at his tail.

They made their way up a dark, rusty staircase that smelled like mold and algae, up to the second floor where this Gansey supposedly lived. Adam couldn’t even begin to picture what this Gansey guy would turn out to be like, after his brief acquaintance with Joseph Kavinsky, he didn’t have high hopes for Ronan’s idea of companionship; so he was left speechless and rather overwhelmed at the boy who greeted them at the door.

Gansey, with his whiskey colored eyes, pressed shirt and carefully tousled hair looked like he’d been spat right out of a congressional. His wire-rimmed glasses sat perfectly straight above the bridge of his nose, his teeth gave off the radiant glow that only came from a lifelong dental plan and a generous bank balance.

It didn’t help that he looked like a male model, with his square-build and those effortlessly handsome features. He reminded Adam of young budding politicians and lawyers, poster children for the American revolution, all crisp, moneyed accents and condescending attitudes.

He was exactly the breed of person who grew up to take the wrong stance on salient political issues, posed for Forbes weekly and promoted the supremacy of active capitalism. Instantly, Adam felt uneasy.

He’d been bred to loathe people like Gansey. He’d been looked down on by people who looked exactly like the man who stood in front of him now. He could tell by his suave semblance and benighted confidence that he’d lived his entire life without breaking a sweat, in the robust arms of liquid assets and gestational power.  
  
“Lynch,” he said. “You look decidedly less disagreeable than I would’ve imagined.”

“Yeah, nice to see you too, Dick. How’s the election going? Are the Ganseys finally going to take over the world like you’d always plotted?”  
  
“Oh, you know. Mom’s doing well. There’s no shell she can’t crack. Even an extra-large Congress-sized shell. Oh, hello,” Gansey said quickly, his eyes sliding over Adam. “I forgot to introduce myself, how uncouth of me. My name is Richard, but that’s also my father. You can just call me Gansey.”  

Adam looked from Ronan to Gansey and then back again. Having to double-check that this was actually happening, Ronan didn’t so much as spare Adam a glance, but Gansey fixed him with a bemused expression. “Is everything alright?” he asked, polite as a courtier but just as chiseled as a king.

All Adam managed was a blink and a question. “You live here?” he hadn’t meant to, but he’d emphasised on the first and last word of the phrase, making him sound almost wary.

Gansey might’ve registered it, but he was not the type of person to get caught in a squall of awkwardness. He broke into a sheepish smile and ran a hand across the back of his neck. “Yes, it isn’t the most luxurious of abodes, but there’s a sense of history and soul to the place. Don’t you think?” before Adam could answer, he proactively kept talking. “I am quite fond of it. In fact, Ronan used to live here with me for awhile before his sojourn at the facility. The place feels emptier without you, you know.” That last part was to Ronan.

Adam couldn’t quite get over the fact that he’d used the word ‘sojourn’ as if describing a summer trip to Vermont rather than a term of rehab, as if to alleviate the gravity of Ronan’s situation.

Ronan sauntered in like he owned the place. “Yeah, I can hear the walls weep,” he said, as Gansey shifted to accommodate his large presence. Ronan, much like a body of roiling water, seemed to fill up any space that contained him all the way to the brim. “They say they hate you.”

Gansey didn’t grace that with a response but turned back towards Adam instead. “Please, do come in,” he said gallantly. “Make yourself comfortable. I do apologize for the clutter. I haven’t had the time to tidy up but sit wherever you’d like. May I get you anything? Tea? Coffee? Soda? Whiskey?”  
  
“I don’t drink,” Adam replied, instinctively.  
  
Gansey shook his head. “How witless of me. Of course you don’t,” when Adam looked to Ronan for an explanation, he merely shrugged and collapsed upon one of Gansey’s couches, without even bothering to kick his boots off.

“He knows.” Ronan replied, simply.  
  
Adam gaped at him. “There’s a signed contract of confidentiality, you know.”  
  
“He’s Gansey,” Ronan said, as if that explained everything.  
  
Adam looked back towards Gansey, who looked unruffled by Adam’s rather unfriendly approach. Adam could feel Ronan’s eyes on him from across the room, studying him, but when he caught the glance, he looked away and pretended to be rapt by the carpet.

Adam buried his uncertainty and envy deep before stretching a hand out in greeting. “I’m Adam, and I guess you already know why I’m here.” Gansey looked delighted at his attempt at cordialness and gave his hand a quick, firm shake.

“Oh, he didn’t feed me the gritty details,” Gansey said, for his sake, perhaps catching on to Adam’s unease of his knowledge about the nature of his relationship with Ronan. It was strange how empathetic he was, and how he seemed to be almost going out of his way to accommodate Adam.

It was a kind enough gesture that it thawed a little bit of the ice that had been building in Adam’s chest upon arrival.

He wasn’t sure whether he was doing it because he steadily avoided prickly situations in general or because he was truly a sympathetic person, but Adam appreciated it nonetheless.

“Is the fridge still in the bathroom where I left it?” Ronan asked.  
  
Gansey instantly sighed. “Unfortunately, but don’t worry, I keep it sanitary,” he said, to deflect any judgement from Adam.

Adam didn’t even want to begin attempting to comprehend that exchange, so he proceeded to make himself comfortable. Gansey’s apartment at Monmouth was wide and airy. It smelled exactly like his university library, dust-ridden with a hint of wood polish.

The ceilings were high and scattered everywhere were a wide array of Gansey’s belongings, labeled boxes upon boxes of items seemingly collected from various trips from around the world, piles of striking literature, antique items and a miniature cardboard model of a city.

It looked more like a mad professor’s home than a teenage boy’s and reminded Adam of Daedalus’ workshop.

“Ah, I almost forgot, I have a calzone baking in the oven. I’ll be right back.” Gansey ducked into the kitchen, that was apparently connected to the bathroom, that was apparently connected to the laundry. Adam wondered why he made things so inconvenient for himself when he literally had acres of space. Despite that, something Adam could appreciate was that his house didn’t look half as royal as Adam would’ve expected from someone like him.

Boys like Gansey tended to live in mansions and boathouses, not in abandoned factories, and even though a lot of his furnishings seemed expensive, they also looked worn and chalky. It was definitely rich, but rich with curiosities and musings rather than anything superficial. Adam could only imagine what he would do if he owned a space like this. Tiered chandeliers on the ceilings, a vault perhaps in the bedroom, a granite countertop…   

Adam had perched himself on the sofa by the one Ronan was seated on and stretched his legs out a little. He sat in inquisitive silence until Ronan kicked at his shoe with his hefty boots and Adam jerked his chin to look up at him.

“What’s this about?” he hissed.

“What’s what about?”  
  
“Don’t fuck with me, Parrish. You look worse off than you did when we were butting heads with Kavinsky.”  
  
“So?”  
  
Ronan fixed him with an incredulous glare. “So, that’s like, I don’t know, being undone by Gabriel instead of Lucifer. It’s just wrong, man.”  
  
Adam shouldn’t have been surprised at Ronan’s use of religious metaphors, considering he’d grown up a Catholic and apparently still visited the church every Sunday that he could manage, but he was surprised that Ronan had picked up on his discomfort. Perhaps he’d been more obvious than he would have cared to admit.  “I’m just… caught off guard, that’s all.”  
  
“Is it because he looks like an arrogant Abercrombie model with a fanatical streak?”  
  
“Maybe?” Adam winced.  
  
Ronan was quiet for another moment, his gaze was enough to turn Adam’s stomach multiple times. It felt like an eternity before he spoke again. “Don’t worry. He’s one of the good ones.”  
  
“I’m not sure what that means coming from you,” Adam admitted, honestly.  
  
Ronan pressed a hand to his heart. “You wound me, Parrish.” He mocked, before dropping his hand and continuing. “Look, I know that trust is a foreign concept to you, but trust me when I say I trust him. Kavinsky wasn’t a friend, but Gansey is. I don’t feel like I should have to justify myself to you, so I won’t bother, but take what I said as you will.”

Adam opened his mouth, and then closed it, knowing that demanding an explanation would be fruitless. Ronan never did anything that he didn’t want to do, nor did he do anything that anyone expected of him, so Adam dropped it. Instead, he focused on getting answers from Gansey, who definitely seemed the type to spill. He was clearly patient and intelligent, and he’d handled Ronan for a lot longer than Adam had, maybe he’d have some useful tips for him.

“So,” Gansey said, as he returned with his calzone. “What do you know about Welsh kings?”

* * *

Ronan wasn’t remotely happy about it, but he begrudgingly obliged when Adam took Gansey and they stepped away from him for a bit. He settled deep into the couch with the gaming console that he’d left at Gansey’s from back when he still lived at Monmouth and paid them no heed.  
  
Gansey led him into his own room for the sake of privacy and shut the door softly behind them.  
  
All it took was a forty-five minute conversation over coffee and a calzone for Adam to approve of Richard Gansey the Third and his eccentric ways. Not only that, but he respected the man who stood in front of him and felt himself wanting to be acknowledged by him.

It wasn’t often that Adam developed such a high regard for somebody within an hour of meeting them but Gansey was certainly more than Adam had bargained for in the best way possible.  
  
He was still a little bit of an entitled prick, but not on purpose. It was just the way he’d been raised, it was just the neighborhood he’d grown up in. If Adam judged everybody based on where they came from, he’d be a hypocrite in the making.

Gansey was on a hunt for a sleeping king, and he had trampled through almost all of southern American looking for him. He was convinced that his king, Glendower, existed, and that he would grant a favor to anyone who was to wake him. It was this fervent mix of impossibility and practicality with just the right hint of whimsy to it that enthralled Adam.

He could practically feel Gansey’s passion through his own teeth when he spoke with that spark in his eye and that ebullient twist to his lips. It thrummed through the flooring beneath his feet.  
  
Gansey was also a scholar and an amateur archeologist, unearthing mystical finds and rare items from several ghost towns and ruins he’d travelled to. He’d promised to show Adam his collections of grandeur from all of his expeditions. Crown jewels and birdbones, ragged old journals from the 1800’s and trinkets from unique souvenir stores around the world.

Gansey’s room was equally enriching, flowing through every wall and every carpet seemed to be this sense of wonder and history that sent Adam’s skin prickling.

Meeting Gansey felt like a promise that there was so much more to the world than he could ever imagine. Sometimes, he couldn’t look beyond that wretched double-wide, the dirt-ridden streets of his hometown.

Sometimes, he couldn’t look beyond the dull gray walls of his university, the bright seas of taxi cabs and tourist buses. Gansey’s finds were a reminder that there were glories and mysteries hidden in every nook and corner if you just knew how to look.

He thought Gansey and he thought long winding country roads, the encircling arms of the evergreen, early spring mornings, diamond caves and waterfalls slurping softly in the depths of stony jungles.

Gansey motioned for Adam to make himself comfortable, so he sat down at the very edge of Gansey’s high thread-count bed. There was a slight tension in the other boy’s jaw, perhaps he noticed Adam’s tendency to make himself smaller than necessary, but didn’t comment on it.

“So,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “This is about Ronan, I presume.”  
  
When Adam nodded, Gansey sighed, loosened his shirt collar, pulled off his glasses and sat down next to Adam on the bed. “Honestly, I wouldn’t know where to start.”  
  
“At the beginning,” Adam replied immediately.  
  
Gansey shot him a bewildered look, but nodded compliantly. “Ronan is…. a travesty,” he began. “There was a time when he was oceans away from the person you see in front of you now. Ronan in his glory days was carefree, warm, a kindred presence. I vehemently believe that he’s still all these things, but they’re repressed deep. Incredibly deep - like you’d need a sledgehammer and a heavy-duty spade to get to that part of him now.” He explained.  
  
Adam remained silent, so Gansey continued. “He used to live at these beautiful barns on the southern side of his hometown with his parents and his brothers. He has wonderful memories there but then the metaphorical shit hit the metaphorical fan and his father was brutally killed. You know this part, of course. It changed everything. It changed him, seemingly irreversibly.

You see, Ronan’s mother was so devastated by the entire fiasco that she pretty much stopped functioning and they had to send her to the hospital, she was catatonic for days before she eventually died in her coma. Declan was supposed to take care of her, he wasn’t supposed to have let this happen. He’d promised Ronan everything was going to be okay.  
  
Neither of them could have protected their father, but the way that they’d let their mother slip past them too was enough to drive Ronan over the edge. They had a huge disagreement. I think a part of Ronan even blamed Declan for everything that happened, even though it wasn’t exactly the man’s fault. They continued to disagree on everything, from funeral arrangements to Matthew - the youngest Lynch son’s future. After Ronan physically attacked Declan and landed him, too, in the hospital, Declan had had enough. All of this drove a wedge between the two brothers.” He went on.  
  
“Ronan grew distant, quiet, fierce. He moved out of the Barns to New York City to live with me and spent a small fortune on a tattoo just to piss Declan off. He began to vigorously train, lifting weights and making a hundred laps around the courtyard every morning, and that was just the start of the downwards spiral.  
  
He met Kavinsky about five months after their mother’s death and three months after Declan had taken Matthew and whisked himself away to Chicago, leaving Ronan on his own. Declan didn’t want to leave his brother like this but he was worried that his behavior was influencing Matthew in the worst way and he wanted better for the kid than that,” Gansey paused to smoothen out the wrinkles he’d felt on his forehead before going on.  
  
“Kavinsky introduced him to more than just alcohol, which had already been a bad habit of Ronan’s. He got heavily into drugs. I tried to stop him, but if you know Ronan at all you know that he doesn’t listen to anyone. I told him he was digging himself a grave and he told me he didn’t mind lying in it. That was what lead to the violent outbursts and the anger issues. That was when Ronan decided that he wanted revenge.  
  
He threw himself into fanatical research until he pinned down Niall Lynch’s killer. That was the man he assaulted in his own home. It was out of a justified grief and need for retribution. Of course, this almost landed him in jail, then Declan got involved and made sure to hire the best lawyers he could find. Ronan was coerced into his stint at rehab soon after.”  
  
Adam was quiet for a long time, and when he spoke again, it was a silent statement rather than a question. “You were the one who found Ronan that day, weren’t you? Covered in his own blood.” Gansey visibly winced, like he was pained by the mere memory, but nodded quietly.  
  
“Jesus, it was atrocious.”  
  
Adam pressed his thumb into his eyebrow and sighed. Gansey mustered a smile. It was a quaint, reassuring smile. Adam suspected that it was that smile that convinced someone like Ronan to blindly follow Gansey wherever the wind reeled them, it was that smile that swayed the leaders of political campaigns to put their trust and money into this young paradigm of the future, it was that smile that was taking him places. An imperative part of the Gansey package.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he said, “and I gave you the condensed version.”  
  
When Adam merely shrugged, Gansey put a hand to his shoulder. Adam instinctively freezed but didn’t squirm out of the grip. “I appreciate what you’re doing for him, you know,” he muttered.  
  
“It’s my job,” Adam said simply.  
  
“Your job is to look after him, you’re doing that anyway. This… This initiative you’re taking to really trudge through all the bullshit he puts people through and help him find himself again, it’s admirable. I’ve personally tried time and time again to get through to him and it’s been counterproductive at best. It’s strange, you know? When you’ve moved mountains and then you meet a person whose burdens seem heavier. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I.”  
  
“I wouldn’t put my money on it,” Adam replied. “He can’t stand me.”

“I’d put my faith in you,” Gansey said, with a twist of his lips. “I’ve seen what he does to people he can’t stand,” when Adam shot him a questioning glance, he added, “I think there’s a part of him that wants to try, that wants to get better. I mean, I was honestly surprised he let you stick around in the first place.

When Ronan had first found out about his brother’s grand plans for him, he’d gone ballistic. He said he wasn’t going to have some stranger psychoanalyzing - and pardon my language, I am only paraphrasing - every shit he took. He promised to send you away, and that he would make life hell for you if you chose to remain, but you don’t look half as distressed as I would imagine the poor bastard Ronan was dragging through the mud. Maybe you’re getting to him, slowly but surely. Whatever it is that’s getting him to cooperate at all, I can only assume your methods must be commendable.”

“My methods have been pretty standard,” Adam said, without a hint of modesty in his voice.   
  
Gansey arched an eyebrow at that. “Perhaps it’s something else then.”  
  
Adam didn’t understand, but Gansey’s eyes raked him as he took his hand away and placed it back into his lap. “What?” Adam asked, noticing the strange once-over he’d just received.  
  
Gansey ran his thumb across his bottom lip and shook his head. “Nothing.”

Adam wasn’t stupid enough to fall for the other boy’s half-hearted ‘nothing’, he was experienced enough to know that an answer like that usually indicated the very opposite of nothing, but he wouldn’t press where it was none of his business.

The expression on Gansey’s face suggested calm and poise, but his eyes gave him away. His thoughts were going a hundred miles per hour in his head. Adam waited for Gansey to compose himself and then, right on cue, he turned to meet Adam’s eyes, the static in them vanishing as quickly as it had come. “Is there anything else you might want to ask me?”  
  
There were probably plenty more questions Adam had if he trudged through his mind, but he didn’t want to press. Gansey seemed like a ticking clock, as if every minute of his time was a valuable, tangible thing. Perhaps Adam had used up his quota for the day.

“Not that I can think of right now,” Adam replied. “Thank you for indulging me.”  
  
“Of course,” Gansey said immediately, eyes shining just as much as his polished shoes. “I think you’re doing a swell job so far. You’ll be a sobering influence on him.”

Adam nodded and began to stand up. “I suppose we should get going before Ronan busts a vein,” Gansey agreed and was halfway to the door before he halted in his tracks.

“Could we… Could we strike up a deal?” he asked. When Adam answered with a frown, he elaborated.

“I just think that we could be useful to each other. I can keep tabs on him via you and you can ask me whatever you want to know whenever you have any doubts, even if you just need advice on how to handle him on his less cooperative days when he’s having his mood swings. It’s just… He is my best friend, but I feel like I’ve let him down somehow by letting things escalate in the way that they have. I’ve been told I let my quest lap up the best of me. It’s funny, you know? All my life I’ve been somewhat of a connoisseur of digging up lost treasures, but I’m useless when it comes to unearthing things about the people I care most about. I get so carried away in my own one-track mind that I forget that there’s this whole world that exists outside of my king.”

When Adam was quiet, Gansey abated the situation with a sheepish smile. “I apologize for bombarding you with all this. You are not _my_ companion, after all.”

“It’s not your fault,” Adam said. “I’m still struggling to figure Ronan out but if there’s one thing I’ve gauged about him it’s that he’s stubborn as hell. I don’t think it would have mattered even if you’d been more present, chances are he still would’ve ended up doing whatever he wanted to do.”

Gansey shrugged. “That may be true, but it would appease my conscience, if nothing else, knowing I tried harder.”

“The conscience is an insatiable beast,” Adam replied.

At this, Gansey beamed. “You’re spot on, Mr. Parrish. So do we have a deal?”  
  
Adam bit his bottom lip. “It’s against my code to be sharing sensitive information about a client with anyone except family members but I guess he told you about me because he sees you as family. I make no promises but I’ll try to keep you updated.”  
  
“Thank you,” Gansey said, genuinely. “We’ll keep in touch. Note down my number.”  
  
Adam noted down his number, and then Gansey held up a hand. “I just have one question I’d like to ask before we move on, if you don’t mind.” Adam shrugged. “Is he still fraternizing with Joseph?” the name almost came out in the form of a snarl.

“Yes,” he muttered, with a sigh.

Something dark flittered through Gansey’s eyes like shadows across a room at night. Once again, it vanished as quickly as it had come, but he didn’t bother to veil his scowl or the distaste he felt for the other man as he spoke. “Joseph Kavinsky is ninety percent of his problems, I swear it. I’ve told him time and time again to leave us alone but it’s like he’s obsessed with Ronan or something. Personally, I just think that leech needs to come to terms with his sexuality.”  
  
Adam was a little alarmed at this seemingly polite person’s sudden outspokenness, but he only crossed over towards the door that led out of Gansey’s bedroom and back outside.

“I think it has more to do with what Kavinsky can offer him rather than the man himself, but you aren’t wrong about their friendship or… whatever it is being problematic and having negative repercussions. I’ll try to limit their playdates.”

“Thank you,” Gansey echoed, as they headed out.  
  
“Oh look. Mommy and daddy are back. Am I going to be grounded?” Ronan snapped, as they made their way into the living room.

“We were just discussing how we are planning to invest in one of those child leashes for you.” Gansey joked, breezily.

“You wish you could put a leash on me,” Ronan muttered, a derisive smile painting his features. “Maybe you’ll shut the fuck up now that you’re done collecting data for your biography on me,” this was directed to Adam.  
  
Before Adam could reply, Ronan shot off the couch and began to make his way towards the door.  
  
“We’re leaving,” he announced. “Come on, Parrish. Chop chop.”  
  
Adam absolutely loathed being spoken to like he was some lowly slave, but the fact that it was Ronan who was berating him helped take the edge off his anger because Ronan was an asshole to everyone and the cold shoulder wasn’t exclusive to Adam.  
  
“See you later, Clark Kent,” this was to Gansey.

“You guys only just got here,” Gansey argued, meekly.  
  
“Oh, you miss me already? How touching.” Ronan said, mockingly, but Gansey grabbed a hold of his arm, halting him in his tracks.

The look in Ronan’s eyes could’ve flayed the skin off Gansey’s bones but he didn’t shrug out of the grasp.

Adam figured that it was out of respect for Gansey. Ronan wasn’t an easy person to please, Adam was still at more of a hit-and-miss with him, but Gansey was someone who’d earned his respect with the added bonus of his friendship and trust.

Ronan may be rigid towards most people, but he became a lot more pliable around the ones he actually cared about.

“I do, actually, yes.” Gansey’s mouth was a straight line. “I know that might be extremely hard for you to believe considering you aren’t well versed with the concept of empathy, but I’ve been worried sick about you. I feel like I haven’t been around as much as I should have and that’s left this wedge between us. I keep wondering if there was something I could’ve done to maybe prevent this from happening. If I’d just -”

“Contrary to popular belief, everything isn’t about you, Gansey.” Ronan snapped, venomously.  
  
Gansey opened his mouth and then closed it again when Adam shot him a discouraging look from where he stood at Ronan’s shoulder, before sighing and giving up.

“Perhaps we can talk about this again when you’re feeling more chipper,” Gansey muttered, a little begrudgingly.

Ronan slid easily out of his grip. “If only there was something to talk about,” he said.

He didn’t spare a second glance at his friend as he bounded down the staircase. He didn’t even check to see if Adam was on his tail.

Gansey looked to Adam, he looked unhinged and tired.

Adam shot him a sympathetic smile. “You’re a good friend,” he said. “No matter what he says, and I think he knows that too. Deep down.”

Gansey shook his head. “Sometimes I feel like he’s a bottomless pit. Good luck to you. I sincerely hope you can nudge him in the right direction.”  
  
Adam turned to look at the empty stairway where Ronan had just been, the air still smelled like his cologne. “I hope so too,” he said, more to himself than to Gansey as he turned and left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- what did you think of this chapter? please, please don't forget to leave me a comment and if you could help me spread the word about this fic in any way possible it'd be greatly appreciated!! your responsiveness motivates me to keep writing. :)  
> \- i officially dub gansey my grandpa - and your grandpa. he's everybody's grandpa!  
> \- come talk to me on my [tumblr](winterblues.tumblr.com) maybe?


	5. W.D.Y.W.F.M

_"Pain is an animal with sharp teeth and a soft heart." - Caitlyn Siehl_

* * *

The clamorous sound of Ronan’s engine splattering to life had Adam speed-walking down the staircase, he skipped the last three steps as he hurried out into the muggy air.   
  
Ronan’s BMW was already slowly pulling out of Monmouth, and Adam got the distinct feeling that he would leave him stranded there if he didn’t sprint for it.

Adam jogged towards the car and pounded his knuckles against the passenger window. From inside, Ronan shot him a bored look but turned the passenger lock off.

Adam pulled himself in and slammed the car door shut besides him, his breathing a little labored from the impromptu exercise. He sneered at Ronan, who was dangerously searching for his sunglasses whilst taking the car in reverse at the same time.

“Were you actually going to leave me here?” he demanded, as he swatted Ronan’s hand away and sifted through the car compartment himself to keep Ronan from ramming the rear-end of the BMW into a tree.

“There’s a bus stop two blocks down.” Ronan replied nonchalantly.

Adam grit his teeth as his fingers curled around what felt like the bridge of a pair of glasses. He yanked them out and shut the compartment, handing them to Ronan, who didn’t even offer a word of gratitude in return and tossed them on the dashboard instead of wearing them.

“I see you got the Gansey stamp of approval,” Ronan said once they’d pulled back onto the road, when Adam merely blinked in response, Ronan scoffed. “You’re kidding me, right? He was mooning at you like a schoolgirl with a crush.”  
  
“You jealous, Lynch?”  
  
Ronan responded with an obscene roll of the tongue and a suggestive smirk, perhaps just going out of his way to prove how little he would be taking anything that came out of Adam’s mouth to heart. Adam chose to ignore that.

“Riddle me this,” he started, as Ronan leaned in to turn the stereo back on. “Why are you hellbent on trying to push the few people who actually seem to give a damn about you so far away?”  
  
“Sometimes, I think he forgets that the world still revolves around the sun.” Ronan replied.

“He’s just trying to help,” Adam offered.  
  
Ronan pressed the fist of his free hand hard into Adam’s cheekbone as he spoke. “I don’t know why I have to keep repeating myself to everyone, but I don’t need any fucking help, especially not from the likes of you.”  
  
This seemed more like a personal dig at Adam rather than a reflection of what he thought about Gansey.

“Well, I don’t think you know what’s good for you,” he retaliated.  
  
Ronan dropped his fist to make a sharp and risky left. A passerby car swerved to a halt and honked indignantly at them. Ronan pretended it wasn’t happening.

“Enlighten me, then. What _is_ good for me?”

“I’m just saying it’s okay to ask for help sometimes. People need people. It’s just how we’re built. Solitude and ego never did anyone any good.”

“That’s cute, coming from you,” Ronan said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
“Come on, Ponyboy. You know better than that. Every minute you don’t spend with me you spend with your books. You used to work three jobs before you took up companionship after realizing that it pays twice as well for less the strenuousness. You flinch when we stop for gas and I choose the most expensive fuel plan. You hardly seem to have any friends, you rarely talk about your family which means you’ve only gotten as far as you have on your own merit.”

It was so unsettling how much Ronan seemed to have gauged about him that Adam was left speechless, but his stomach felt uneasy and his heart was beating a hole into his chest. Here Adam was, attempting to solve the conundrum that was Ronan Lynch, and he had beaten him to the punch.  
  
Apparently, when _he’d_ been studying Ronan, Ronan had been studying _him_.  
  
“You’re lonesome, Parrish,” Ronan said, with a snarl. The mirth on his face was scalding, he knew he was getting under Adam’s skin and he was revelling in it. There was a furious part of Adam that wanted to wipe that look clean off his face but he was better now than he’d ever been at cooling his temper and what was once a wildfire was now merely an inconsequential flare.

If he hadn’t been so flabbergasted, he would’ve thought it intriguing; Ronan’s attention to detail. He was obviously intelligent, and seemed to be a keen observer. It made him wonder what else Ronan had speculated about him. It made him feel strangely naked, see-through. As if Ronan was wearing x-ray vision goggles that could cut right past Adam’s extrinsic facades.

“It’s a tale as old as time. Small town kid migrates to the big city to make something of himself, to be more than the belittled, bullied and sad little know-nothing he’d gained a rep for back home. You want your picture in the history books? Get in line, man.”

This sparked Adam’s nerves. “Don’t talk to me like that,” he warned, in a low voice. “Like you’re above me.”

Ronan only seemed to get more amused at Adam’s abrupt vexation. “Oh, may I strike the iron while it’s still hot?” Ronan reproached. “You should give up trying to fix me and focus on fixing your own damn trainwreck first.”

When Adam said nothing, Ronan parked the car to the side of the road, which was a promptly deserted one this late in the evening, and pressed on. “Look at me,” he said. Adam looked at him.  
  
Ronan pointed a hand up to his own face. “I am both broken and unbreakable at the same time. I am a lost cause. I gave up the fight. It’s done. Spilled milk. What-fucking-ever. I’m giving you one last chance to back out. Take the money, I know you need it. I’m not trying to fucking downgrade you, I’m just stating the facts. Take the money and leave. We can both go our separate ways and pretend this never happened.”  
  
Adam fixed him a blank stare. Just like that, all the anger trickled out of him, to be replaced with a warring sense of disbelief and bafflement.  
  
“No,” he said. “You claim to be this honest person but I think you’re lying right now. I think things _do_ get to you. I think it scares you a little bit that they still do after everything life has hurled at you. I think there’s a part of you that’s afraid to die but you’re suicidal anyway. I think all of this - acting out, being hurtful towards your best friend, backing away from the bargain I made with your brother - it’s all a silent plea for help, but you’re too stubborn to take it when it’s actually offered to you.”

Ronan’s expression was indecipherable, he was a vicious and scathing viper. Adam remained unmoved. The next thing he knew Ronan was grabbing him by the collar and staring him down with a look that could’ve decapitated someone. Adam could feel his breath against his jaw. His shoulders were so tense they could have sharply cut through the air.   
  
“I thought I made myself clear when I said I don't want your psychoanalysis,” Ronan snarled.  
  
“I don’t care,” Adam replied, refusing to back down. Eyes rapt on Ronan.  
  
_"What do you want from me?"_ Ronan's words spilled out through his teeth.

"I want you to stop deflecting the whole entire world and give healing a chance. Give _me_ a chance."

Adam’s heart was exploding in between his ribs, a part of him was afraid Ronan would hit him, but Ronan only huffed and let go of him, recoiling from him so quickly it was as if he physically burned himself on Adam.  
  
“I’m done with you for the day,” he said, with a sigh.  
  
“Me too,” Adam replied, after a considerable bout of silence. “I’ll see you at home in two hours and then we’ll take a quick drug test, so don’t try anything stupid, I’m warning you. If you’re not home by the time I’m back, I _will_ call your brother. I hope we understand each other. Goodbye.”

With that, Adam slid out of the car and chose to take the bus to Blue’s place. A taxi would’ve been faster, but he wasn’t willing to pay the fare, so he walked to the bus stop in strangled silence, without pausing to look back at Ronan’s car, which he’d heard pulling back onto the road the second he’d shut the door behind him.

Adam’s head was a jungle, but he was going to make it through this. If today proved anything, it was that Ronan wasn’t soulless after all.

* * *

“Jesus,” Blue said, with a spoonful of yogurt jammed in her mouth. “Did you swim here?”

“I rode a dolphin, actually,” Adam replied, deadpan.  
  
“And he jokes!” Blue sang, letting him into her house. “You musn’t be that far gone, then. Seriously though, why do you look like something a garbage truck puked out?”  
  
As Adam stepped into 300 Fox Way, he stepped into a world of its very own. Everything smelt like burnt flowers and sage, incense and candle wax. There were strange murals on the walls and antiques lining the shelves, knitted tablecloths and potted plants of all shapes and sizes.

Whenever he was in Blue’s house, he felt bigger and smaller at the same time.  
  
“Hello, Coca-Cola shirt!” Maura crooned from the kitchen.

“Don’t leak your magic all over the carpet,” Persephone said, softly, creeping up beside him like a squirrel.

“The only thing he’s leaking is stress and its tainting the energy of this home and more importantly, killing my vibe. Grow a pair and get over it, Coke boy,” this was Calla, shouting from two rooms over.  
  
The first time he’d been to Foxway, he’d been wearing a t-shirt with the Coca-Cola logo on it and it appeared that he would forever be associated with it now. The women of the house were big on nicknames. Jimi offered him tea and a pastry, he balked but finally accepted the offering when she shot him a wounded look. Orla wandered into the living room merely to remind Adam of how she thought he could do so much better than Blue and by better she meant herself.  
  
Sometimes, visiting Blue meant visiting the entire coven. Psychic energy was everywhere, phones rang perpetually, women whispered in low voices, dishes clattered in the kitchen.

“Let’s hide you away in my room before Calla mistakes you for one of the house plants and casts an ugly charm on you or Orla molests you,” Blue said, quickly, before he could even explain himself. She took him gently by the arm and began to steer him towards her room.

It had turned out that Ronan had been mistaken, the bus stop was three blocks away from where he’d gotten dropped off and to make things worse, it had begun to rain, then, just to add the bitter icing onto the blasted cake, a car revved past the sidewalk at full-speed, splattering the contents of a massive puddle directly onto him.

All in all, the evening had gone from dire to cataclysmic.

They made their way into Blue’s room and shut the door behind them. Blue’s bedroom was as familiar to Adam as the back of his own hand after all these years of being such close friends.  
  
There was something reassuring and whimsical about it, like Blue herself.

Adam crashed onto Blue’s bed and Blue crashed besides him, upside down so that her neon painted toes were next to Adam’s ear. Adam stared up at the ceiling, quiet a moment.

He stared at the leaves hanging from the ceiling fan and the faint brushstrokes of glitter that led down to the canvas silhouettes of various trees taped to the walls.  
  
“Are you having a crisis right now?” Blue asked, pointedly. “Like, should I be worried about your wellbeing?”  
  
“What makes you say that?” Adam replied, dryly, as he slung his arm over his eyes to block out the light. “Just the fact that you’re too much of an overzealous tight ass to drop in unannounced, and when you do, it’s usually because something’s wrong.”

“Point taken,” Adam said, with a sigh, before explaining his entire situation.

Blue was quiet a long moment before she spoke up. “If he’s that much of a pest, why don’t you have yourself replaced with another companion? I’m sure they can assign you someone new too, and it’s not like you need this nonsense, with everything you’re already juggling.”  
  
Adam bit his bottom lip. “I… I think I could help him.”  
  
“Adam Parrish doesn’t back down from a challenge huh,” Blue grinned.  
  
“It’s not that.”  
  
“Spell it out for me.”

“It’s just he’s… intriguing.”  
  
“Oh, he’s intriguing, is he?” Blue mocked.

“He’s messed up.”

Blue shot him an incredulous look. “When was the last time you met someone who wasn’t?”  
  
“Come on, Sargent,” he muttered. Blue rolled onto her knees. “No, _you_ come on. Give me one good reason you think this guy is worth risking your health for, I mean no offense but your mental decline hasn’t exactly been subtle and I hate to mom you but before you start taking care of others you need to do a better job at taking care of yourself, mister!”

Blue had her ‘no-nonsense’ expression on. It was insanely adorable and insanely fierce at the same time. Her lower lip would stick out only slightly in front of her upper lip and her eyes got all squinty. She looked like an avenging angel of some kind.  
  
Despite her lack of understanding, Adam didn’t have it in himself to argue with her, especially not when she was demonstrating to him how much she _cared_. Sometimes, it still came as a shock to him when somebody showed him even the slightest bit of consideration, when someone made him feel like he was worth more than the dirt he’d come from.

It was a trophy - no, it was a _reminder_.

So Adam merely sat bolt upright against her headboard and raised an arm for her. It took Blue a millisecond, but she huffed and relented, crawling up into his arms and pressing her delicate little head against his shoulder.

“You’re going to end up doing as you damn well please no matter what I say, aren’t you?” Blue mumbled, words muffled against his t-shirt.  
  
Adam merely put his chin to her head and jerked it lightly.  
  
“Probably,” he replied, honestly.  
  
“Great,” Blue muttered. “Now I know what mom feels like. Gosh, I hope I never have kids.”

Adam smiled a little at that and ran a quick hand through her hair. They’d gotten so comfortable around each other ever since they’d dropped the idea of being a couple that this had become acceptable.

There was a platonic comfort in their embrace. Familiar and hearth. Neither of them would admit it, but they were both just really grateful to have each other.

“Just don’t kill yourself over him,” Blue finally advised.  
  
“I can’t kill his demons,” Adam replied. “I just want to make him see that they _are_ killable.”

Blue looked up, nose pinched. “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the Optimistic you compared to the I-Blame-The-World-For-All-My-Problems-Now- Look-At-Me-Frown-Like-I’m-Constipated you, but how are you so sure?”  
  
“I overcame mine, didn’t I?” it was only half a lie, but he’d gotten out of that godforsaken place, he was free from his father’s reigns, he was working towards achieving all the burning dreams he’d had ever since he could remember and that was progress.

That was something, that was moving forward, and it was all anybody could hope for, right? Freedom from a gritty past? A fresh new start?

“They die, their corpses stick around like muted background noise in your head, but they die and eventually turn into the fuel you need to put into an assured future.”

“Spoken like a true spokesman,” Blue teased. “You should host a Ted Talk.”  
  
Adam rolled his eyes.

“I’m kind of proud of you, though. You know that don’t you, idiot?” Blue added, like an afterthought.

“No, I don’t. You should write it down twenty times in permanent marker on a sheet of paper and fax it to me.” Adam said.

“Oh, what am I going to do with you, Adam Parrish?” she mused, theatrically, before lightly punching him in the stomach. He lightly punched her back, and when it was time to go back home, she gave him a quick kiss on the forehead.  
  
“Just say the word and I’ll fight him for you, okay?” Blue said, with a wink. “Even vultures have weaknesses. We can set a trap.”

As Adam made his way back, he tried calling Ronan’s phone thrice. It rang the first time and went dead after that. Alarm bells immediately sounded off in his head. He practically scurried like a chicken with its head cut off in an effort to make it back to Ronan’s house. It was half a miracle he didn’t get run over in his haste.  
  
When he finally got home, the first thing he noticed was that Ronan’s BMW wasn’t anywhere in sight, which meant he most likely wasn’t home. Still, Adam had to make sure before he began to scour the streets so he jabbed the key into the keyhole and poured into the house.  
  
The interiors were amorphously dark and suffocatingly silent - a little bit _too_ silent. Adam’s heart pounded frantically in his ribcage. If something had gone wrong, if Ronan had relapsed, he would never be able to explain himself to Declan. Moreover, he’d never forgive himself for letting the other boy out of his sight, he’d never - _no._

He couldn’t let his mind go there. Not yet.

Despite of all of Ronan’s nuisances, he hadn’t shown much of a penchant for relapse. He seemed to be going through a few withdrawal symptoms, sure, but he’d been coping, or so Adam thought.

“Ronan!” he called out, voice loud enough to leave an imprint on every wall inside of the house.  
  
More silence.  
  
“Ronan!” he called again. “Are you home?”  
  
Nothing.

He flipped on the lights and tried Ronan’s room first, which was locked as always, but there didn’t seem to be anybody inside - he always blasted music when he was home. After that, he surveyed every room in the house including the attic three times over for good measure. Zilch.

Adam stormed back out of the house and let out an exhausted sigh before trying Ronan’s number again in a bout of desperation, to no avail. The line was still dead. Adam was two seconds from ramming his fist through the bricks when he quickly remembered that he’d exchanged numbers with Gansey earlier that day.  
  
He quickly dialled and waited. Gansey picked up on the third ring.  
  
“Adam, it’s nice to hear from you. I must say I didn’t expect a -”  
  
“Is Ronan with you?”  
  
The voice on the other end went horribly silent a moment. “No,” he said, there was an undeniable edge to his voice. “Oh God,” he muttered. “What’s happened?”  
  
“Shit. _Shit_ .” Adam cursed. “I left him by himself for _two_ hours! I even threatened him by dangling his brother’s contract over his head! How could he _do_ this?”  
  
“Bad idea,” Gansey replied. “Ronan can be very spiteful when it comes to Declan. I’m afraid you may have just urged him on.”

“Oh, I apologize, I’m probably not helping,” Gansey amended, immediately. “I’m quite frazzled indeed. The last time Ronan went missing like this… Well, you know.”  
  
Adam couldn’t quite fathom how he could even care about something as trivial as being polite right now. “Shit!” Adam repeated.  
  
“Okay, okay. Don’t worry. I’ve got this. I had a tracker installed into the BMW’s GPS system after the whole…  Incident. It's zeroing down on him now. Just give me a few seconds.”

“Does Ronan know?” Adam had to ask.

“I believe he is going to very creatively - and with morbid precision to detail, ask me to go fuck myself when he eventually does. Oh, here. Wait a moment, please,” he heard rustling on the other end of the line and what sounded like the jingling of a set of keys, then, “we've got a location. He's at The Oracle. It's a club about 25 miles from Monmouth. I'm going to get in my car right now.”

Adam’s heart stopped. Ronan, a recovering _addict_ , at a nightclub? There was no way this was going to end well.

“It's probably best if I do this alone,” Adam muttered. “I was careless and I failed him. I shouldn't have left him. _God_. I shouldn't have -”’

“Hey, don't beat yourself up over it. Ronan isn't a force that anything can control. He defies all laws of Physics, really. I should come, I should help you. I have this terrible gut feeling that he's with Joseph and trust me, you're going to need backup if he is.”

“I’ll be fine,” Adam assured. “I’ll keep you updated.”

Joseph Kavinsky was a rascal, sure, but Adam had dealt with rascals pretty much all his life.  
  
Hell, he had one’s blood running through his cursed veins.

He could handle a Kavinsky. He could probably handle ten Kavinskys.

What he _didn't_ have was the time to wait on Gansey to pour into that raggedy orange bullock cart he called a car and amble on over to pick Adam up.

Gansey didn't sound the least bit convinced. “He’s not thinking straight, Adam. I know what he’s like when he’s not thinking straight, and it is a whole lot worse than what you’ve seen of him so far. I’ll be there right away, okay? I can help.”

“Gansey -” Adam started to protest, but he was interjected.

“I _have_ to be there for him this time,” he pressed, voice leaking more subdued emotion than Adam was comfortable with in the moment.

“Alright,” he relented. There was no time to argue, either. “But you better drive that rusty Camaro of yours like it’s a damn spaceship.”

He didn't wait to listen to Gansey’s response and hit the end call button. Adam was expecting Gansey to take about twenty minutes, so he was pleasantly surprised when he arrived in ten. He was also surprised when Gansey showed up in a sleek black SUV rather than the Camaro.  
  
Gansey wrenched the door open for him and Adam slid in. “How many traffic violations did you break?” he said, shooting up an eyebrow.

In the driver’s seat, Gansey looked flushed and unnerved. His light hair sat in uneven, bedraggled tufts over his head and he was biting down on his lower lip so hard Adam was afraid he would draw blood.

Despite his obvious distress however, his eyes held a spark of something wild. “Just the one skipped red light,” he assured. “I have allies on the force, so it's all good.”

“Of course you do,” Adam muttered, beneath his breath.    
  
People like Gansey had the means to own more than one car when people like Adam were barely scraping by the ever-rising costs of public transport, people like Gansey split donuts with police officers and flew by their radars every time they flashed a shiny credit card their way.

Adam filed the invading thoughts away for later. Right now, he just had to find Ronan before he lost a client to the cruel consequences of his own ineptitude.

He’d been hired to help, to _protect_ -

Adam’s thoughts were cut short as he jerked his chin up to face Gansey, who’d been snapping his fingers in front of his face. Adam’s brain was going a mile a minute, he couldn’t understand anything. He ached for the day his body would finally catch up with his kinetic mind.

“What?” Adam muttered, blinking in Gansey’s face.  
  
“How was he when you last left him?” he repeated himself, for probably the third time that minute. Adam would’ve apologized, but he was too frenetic to find it in himself to bother.

Adam gulped. There was a voice in his head and it was hissing the blame at him. “He was his usual combative self, but we did get into a little dispute I didn’t think much of at the time. Then, uh, I got out of his car and he sped off.”

Gansey was quiet, his expression introspective as he tapped the finger of his free hand against his chin with his eyes narrowed. They took a sharp U-turn but this vehicle, unlike Gansey’s prized Camaro, took it smoothly.

Adam still felt it in his stomach, though it could’ve just been the anxiety.

When Gansey spoke again, they’d cut off onto a narrow stretch of road, unending and lousy against the dark, compressed body of the night. They broke yet another signal, but there were no cops in sight and their only spectator had been a truck whose driver looked like he couldn’t have cared less.  
  
“It took me a moment to place The Oracle, then I remembered Ronan mentioning the club to me in passing, once. Apparently it’s one of the many seedy niteries Kavinsky and his merry men like to frequent.”

As they’d peeled away from the regular traffic-heavy hotspots, they’d been thrust into this rural kingdom of dark arching one-way lanes that seemed to lead to everywhere and nowhere at the same time. No wonder this club seemed shady, no wonder a rat like Kavinsky would plant his flag there.

He thought himself the ruler of the night, slithering up the tempestuous domains of back alleys and frontier roads, roadside bars and streetlight soirees.  

“What is Kavinsky’s deal?” Adam asked, indignantly. “Why does he leech onto Ronan like this and why does Ronan just... _let_ him?”  
  
Gansey sighed languidly, his breath smelt like mint leaves, or it could’ve just been the car freshner, which not-so-incidentally smelt the same. “You let me know if you ever solve that one,” he replied. “Besides from the fact that Kavinsky allows him to indulge that wild streak of his and between the street racing and the drinking, my guess is as good as yours.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Adam said, feeling suddenly defeated. “I wasn’t as ardent towards this job as I should’ve been. After Ronan started to at least semi-cooperate with me, I trusted him too easily to behave when by himself. I got carried away, I got sloppy. If… If anything’s happened to him, it might as well be because of me.”  
  
Gansey ran a quick hand through his hair and shook his head. “You shouldn’t have to worry about stepping away for a breather every now and then. It’s a demanding job as it is and I’m sure you’ve got your own life to sort out. Ronan has made this hard enough on you as it is, I wish I could tell you it’ll get easier, but he’s pretty much been a loose canon since his parents’ death. I suppose what I mean to say is that I know how you feel. I still get mad at myself every time I think about how I should’ve been more present, I even create make-believe scenarios in my head, but sometimes, people just slip between our fingers and there’s little we can do about it.”  
  
“Thanks,” Adam said, with a tentative smile. “You’re really good at making other people feel more secure about themselves when you’re clearly pretty mindfucked yourself.”

Gansey let out a hoarse laugh. “It’s a gift.”  
  
They made the rest of the ride in anticipative silence. When they finally pulled up at The Oracle - a neon lit beast in the heart of the badlands, Gansey arranged for the valet to handle the car and craftily bribed the menacing-looking bouncers so that they could fly past the line.

Adam was left a little in awe of how quickly Gansey had managed to gather himself back together. It was like watching a play-actor at work as soon as the curtains reeled up. It was like watching an urbane king tackle his subjects.

He couldn’t help but see the momentous perks of being a fellow courstman at Gansey’s side. No wonder he’d entranced a creature like Ronan Lynch. Adam was pretty entranced himself.  
  
Mostly it was because Richard Gansey the Third posed a multitude of qualities Adam wished he possessed himself.

Gansey gestured for Adam to follow as they made their way past the bouncers and a string of agitated party-goers, still trapped in the line, who were groaning or spouting curses at their underhand entry.

Adam stared down at his feet the whole time, but Gansey passed through the veil between the outside world and the deep, shredded and pulsing jungle of the club without paying the spectators any heat.

Immediately, the bass bled into his feet and made the ground leap up at him. They found themselves in a black ocean of lights and smoke, and Adam wondered how they’d manage to find Ronan in the midst of this chaos when he was having trouble merely keeping up with Gansey, who’s back he was currently rapt on.

Adam felt like he was navigating through the tides as everything around him thundered to the command of the music.

There wasn’t much wiggle room, so they had to push past throngs of people whose faces were lost to the darkness, flashes of cleavage and swirling dresses, piercings and Mohawks their only giveaway. It smelt like sweat and alcohol and deodorant and fumes.  
  
Adam instantly felt unstable. It wasn’t like he hadn’t ever been to a club before but the memories he did have of his last experience at one weren’t exactly pleasant. Being around so many people made him distressed and hysterical at the same time.

Clubs had never been his thing. His idea of an ideal Friday night included a stack of brand new books to read, a cup of steaming coffee and perhaps a moonlit walk through a forest after.

It was suffocating and sticky and his stomach lurched nauseatingly every time he brushed up against a shambling stranger.  
  
The concept of touch was still a foreign one to Adam, and it was an infinitely scarring thought merely considering the amount of people stumbling up and over him tonight.

Gansey made an about-face, his eyes like flames under the oscillating shimmer of the strobe lights. “Stay close!” he mouthed. Adam nodded, despite his rapidly deafening eardrum. One was a lost cause already, he hoped he wasn’t about to lose the other.  
  
The Oracle was impossibly large, when they were done sweeping through the first level, there were still two floors to go. They checked the red-carpeted VIP section, the bar stools, Gansey even circled the dance floor a couple times with no luck.  
  
Gansey flocked back to Adam with a disappointed shrug and a twitch of the nose. “This is going to be more difficult than I presumed,” he bellowed.

“We could ask around,” Adam suggested, before raking the scene and changing his mind instantly. “On second thought, everyone here looks wrecked.”

“I could request an announcement at the DJ booth,” Gansey offered.  
  
“Perhaps we should scope out the rest of the night club first. Should we split up?”  
  
“I suppose so, yes. You’ve got your phone on you, right?” Adam nodded. “You tackle the second floor, I’ll go up to the third. I’ll buzz you a text on our rendezvous point after.”  
  
It took them almost an hour before they had any luck, and it was Gansey who spotted a familiar face amongst the sea of strangers, and then another, and then another.  
  
Dispersed around a table at the very back of the third floor’s VIP lounge (which Gansey had maneuvered swift entry into), were Kavinsky’s gang of nutheads.  
  
Adam didn’t know any of their names, but Gansey stepped in right on cue.

“Prokopenko, Skov, Swan and Jiang,” Gansey muttered, as they made their way towards them.  
  
“Kavinsky’s rat pack,” Adam guessed.

The man in question was missing, but that didn’t deter Gansey, who stomped right up towards the boy Adam was assuming was Prokopenko and grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt with such brutal force that he was propelled half-off his chair, which skidded slightly in protest.

Gansey didn’t seem like the type to throw punches around, but Adam could tell his patience was being heavily tested tonight. Adam lingered a couple steps behind Gansey, a little uneasy at the mere thought of any sort of fight breaking out.

“Where _is_ he?” Gansey demanded, cruel but curt.

Skov, Swan and Jiang were on their feet immediately, prepared to defend their friend, but surprisingly, all it took was the glacial look in Gansey’s eyes to keep them from engaging.

“Hey, man. I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man.” Prokopenko slurred, pupils dilated from an ostensibly large intake of… _something_. “Oh, wait. I’ll check up my ass. Hold up,” he turned his head - as much as he dared anyway - beneath Gansey’s death-grip on his collar and pretended to sniff his own butt.

The other boys laughed boisterous and high as hyenas. Their voices grated against Adam’s own resolve. “We won’t ask nicely again,” he said, sidling up by Gansey’s side and speaking in a low but what he hoped was a baleful voice.

“He has Ronan, doesn’t he?” Gansey said, knuckles white beneath Prokopenko’s chin.   
  
“ _Ronan_ came to _him_ , man. He knows what he wants. He’s a big boy. He doesn’t wanna suck you off anymore!” Prokopenko cackled. This was enough to send Gansey’s temper blasting, but instead of punching the guy, he merely pushed him up against the wall and pressed his fist into Prokopenko’s throat.

“You have exactly one minute to answer my question before I break you so hard you’ll forget how to work that mannerless mouth of yours.”  
  
At this, Prokopenko’s shoulders slumped. “I’m just tryna’ have a good time, man. Don’t kill our vibe, okay? Kavinsky and your precious boyfriend left us about an hour ago. They’re probably sleeping out back.”  
  
Adam frowned and mouthed, to nobody in particular. “Sleeping?”  
  
But Gansey had dropped Prokopenko in alarm and was already turning on his heel, expression indistinguishable. Adam was unable to process what was happening, but he could tell that Gansey knew what he was talking about so he was quick on the other boy’s heels.  
  
They didn’t bother to glance back at Kavinsky’s gang as they trudged through the club to find the back door exit. “What did he mean?” Adam demanded, as they searched for the exit. “I’m hoping it’s not what I think it is,” Gansey said, cryptically.  
  
“What do you mean?” Adam pressed on, but before Gansey could answer, they found the backdoor exit and he pushed the door back, holding it open for Adam, who slipped in behind him. There was nothing that could've prepared him for what he witnessed next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i'm so sorrynotsorry about the sort-of cliffhanger xD *insert satanic laugh here*  
> \- please leave me a comment about what you think! :)  
> \- chapter name totally based off the song by the neighborhood


	6. Smoke & Mirrors

_"The world dreamed me, I dream the world." - Ursula K. Le Guin_

* * *

The pulse of the beastly music abated as they stepped out into the muggy night air, and there, right against the mouth of the barbed-wire fencing, overlooking splotchy grassland and making an askew portrait, were a white Mitsubishi and Ronan’s BMW.

Their tire marks were so prominently etched into the asphalt beneath them that it looked like cracks formed in the earth. Gansey speed-walked towards the scene with Adam quick on his heels. Whatever Adam had been expecting, it certainly hadn’t been this.

Two forms were lying over the Mitsubishi’s hood. Kavinsky was leaned over Ronan’s drowsing form, propped up on one elbow, shirtless and sneering. Ronan looked delirious, his muscle tee was soaked with sweat.

He seemed fevered, his arms were… Adam thought his eyes were defying him… his arms were tangled in thorny bushes that seemed to be growing out of absolutely nowhere but were as real as the crescent moon above their heads and the steady growling of the bass still bounding through his veins.

Then he saw the blood. Lots of blood.  
  
Gansey halted in his tracks. “Jesus,” he muttered.  
  
Adam froze behind him. “Fuck,” Adam said.  
  
Because now he could see that the substance soaking Ronan wasn’t sweat at all, it was definitely blood. It was running down his arms and sticking to his torso and some of it was on Kavinsky’s face. Adam wasn’t naturally queasy, but his stomach protested anyway.

The smell was so strong. Gasoline and blood and cigarettes. It was making him sick.

Kavinsky barely looked up at their approach. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t my favorite dick and his Mini-Me,” he could’ve meant Dick as in his name, but Adam didn’t care to dwell on innuendos.

“Get off of him." Gansey commanded at once; voice dangerously calm. He wasn’t as taken aback by the blood as Adam would’ve thought that he’d be.

Adam wanted to say something himself, he wanted to scream, he wanted to bombard them both with a thousand questions, but he couldn’t get his vocal chords to work so he just stood there in silent torment.  
  
“Shh,” Kavinsky said, placing his middle finger against his lips. “Lynch’s rock-a-bye baby right now.”

“I said,” Gansey repeated. “Get _off_ of him.”  
  
Kavinsky laughed, ugly and uncomfortable as a dozen nails screeching against an endless chalkboard. “I worship no god, I bow to no king,” he said, rather poetically. “Now shut up and wait, alright? The magic show’s about to start!” he grinned, volatile as a rash.

“You’re a sociopath,” Adam managed, voice rippling and broken.  
  
Kavinsky’s laser-gaze pinned itself on Adam. “Who isn’t, cupcake?”

Gansey, who’d clung onto whatever threadbare sense of cordialness he had left, went off like a bomb right then. He marched up to the car and practically shoved Kavinsky off of it.

Somehow, Adam found his footing and scurried up to Ronan, whose entire body had begun to convulse. “What did he take?” Adam demanded.  
  
“Magic beans,” Kavinsky drawled, voice indolent, but then his face went a little slack at the sight of Ronan. “Leave him alone, you fucker!” he hissed at Adam, offhandedly. “Funny,” Gansey said, between gritted teeth. “I was about to tell you the same thing.”

He made as if to punch Kavinsky, who blocked his arm and grabbed his wrist, digging his nails into Gansey’s skin. For all of Gansey’s threats, he wasn’t much of a fighter. “You balls for brains don’t understand!” he yipped. “He’s dreaming! If you interrupt the dream he’ll get an ouchie, man! Or _die_ ,”

It was all Greek to Adam, but Gansey wrenched his arm out of Kavinsky’s grasp and turned to Adam, who shot him a questioning look.  
  
“He’s already hurt,” Adam said.  
  
“Look, Sleeping Beauty doesn’t need a prince to kiss her awake, man. Wait for him to get his bearings straight, right? I knew you sweethearts would trace the crime back to me, but if you don’t let me jump back in there to help him out he’s going to blow - and not in the pleasant way.”  
  
Adam merely stared from Kavinsky’s demonic face to Gansey’s hounded one, helplessly lost. In the end, Gansey just nodded and took a step back. Kavinsky’s grin of triumph was as horrifying as the blood that streaked his face as he slithered back towards Ronan and popped a little teal pill into his mouth. Instantly, his body went slack.

About a minute later, a horror seemed to materialize out of nowhere. It was impossible to explain except for how there was nothing one moment and then something the next. It was like Adam’s brain was unable to register the mechanics of its appearance, so it was kind of like he’d sifted through a flipbook.

Adam doubled back so fast he almost tripped on his own heels, Gansey’s eyes widened to the size of windows. It was a dark, sweeping thing with talons akin to a hawk’s and eyes like oblivion. It had feathers the exact shade of rotten blood and when it squaked, it made a sound so painfully inhuman that it sat in Adam’s throat like a fork.

It was gone within the blink of an eye, taking off into the night. Adam watched it fly away, looking like a large bat from a horror movie circling the moon. Then it was a mere spec in the distance, easy enough to confuse for a corvid. Adam felt his stomach bottom out.  
  
Had he just watched magic happen?

“I wonder where it’s going,” Gansey sounded more analytical than concerned about the matter.  
  
It took several moments of Adam reminding himself how breathing worked before he could look to Gansey, even as he felt his jaw lounging inches away from his upper lip, feeling like he was on an acid trip himself.

“What the fuck?”

Gansey took a deep breath and let it out, paced a little, pressed his thumbs into his eyes and paced a little again before he finally answered him. “Look, I don’t know how to break this to you without sounding completely off my rocker but Ronan can pull things from his dreams. Quite… Quite literally. And so can Kavinsky here, apparently.”

“I…” Adam’s voice failed him once again. He was a man of science, if he was asked to put his faith into something, anything - there had to be irrefutable proof to go along with it. There were many concepts Adam didn’t believe in: religion, capitalism, cold fries.

This was… _Paranormal_. This was absurd and amazing and impossible and insane.

“You are insane,” Adam finally said, a little hysterical now. “This is insane… I- I’m insane.”  
  
“He’s known as the Greywaren,” Gansey explained, despite the piteous expression on his face. Under normal circumstances, Adam wouldn’t have tolerated a look of pity, but these were far from normal circumstances. “I know that this is a hard pill to swallow, I’m sorry that you had to find it out this way, or that you had to find out about it at all.”

“Your boy looks like he’s going to have an aneurysm. Better keep the ambulance on speed dial, Dicky.” Kavinsky spat.

Gansey continued like he hadn’t even spoken. “It’s complicated but also not. You see, I thought it unfathomable, too, until I realized that there’s a difference between the impossible and the unfathomable. I’ve straddled that line looking for my king. Hell, I’ve repainted it. You’ve just got to accept that there are things out there - absolutely incredible, magnificent, crazy things and... Ronan’s one of them.”

“Touching,” Kavinsky said, mockingly sniffling. “Is that the kind of speech that finally got him to jerk you off, or do you take turns tickling each other’s balls?”

Adam hadn’t even realized when he’d gone from being dead as a log to his bright, turbulent self again. Kavinsky’s eyes crackled with something explosive, he licked his bottom lip lewdly and thrust his pelvis in the air when Adam caught his eye.  
  
“Charming, Kavinsky,” Gansey muttered.

“And you say _we’re_ the ones with balls for brains,” Adam said.  
  
Before Kavinsky could spit out a rancid retort, Ronan jerked heavily awake. His chest rose and fell cataclysmically, his eyes were wide as mirror balls, but he seemed to have trouble moving.  
  
“Welcome back to hell, princess,” Kavinsky said, suddenly sounding bored.

Instead of dwelling on all the craziness, he chose to focus, at least for the time being, on what he was here for. Adam was instantly back at Ronan’s side. The second Ronan’s eyes met his own however, it was like he was seeing right through Adam.

Ronan shot up and turned his gaze on Kavinsky, deadly and guttural. “I’m going to fucking destroy you,” he said, voice venomous.  
  
“You wish, man,” Kavinsky said, unmoved.

At this, Ronan pushed himself off the hood of the car and abandoned Adam’s side in favor of wrapping his fist around Kavinsky’s bare throat. Kavinsky hissed and it sounded to Adam like someone was pouring hot liquidized metal over his ear.  
  
Immediately, Gansey stepped forward to intervene.

Adam was merely enraptured at the scene unfolding in front of him.  
  
Ronan was as amorphous and searing as a fire beneath the ugly arms of this unchained rage. Suddenly, Adam understood why they’d packed him off to anger management, how he’d landed a grown man in a hospital, why Gansey was so wary of upsetting him. Then there was Kavinsky, of course, a target as tangible and durable as they came. Perhaps Adam understood a little something about this unhealthy and beyond chaotic relationship.

Kavinsky was the wick to Ronan’s flame. Setting him right off whenever he had to blow some steam. It was as intriguing as it was awful.

“I told you not to feed me your fucking mothballs!” Ronan exclaimed, grip moored on Kavinsky, who laughed and then coughed like he was choking on the sound of his own nasty voice.

“I only ever give people what they want, Lynch,” he snarled. “Do you remember what I told you? How about I jog your memory, man. I _know_ what you are. I _know_ what you want. You and I? We’re two sides of the same fucking coin, man! We’re above all these sad, sad people. We’re the new fucking world order!”

Ronan looked unimpressed. “You don’t know anything about the world,” he said, between tight lips.

Kavinsky’s eyes were like the barrels of guns, dark and fathomless. “I have my own, and you can, too. No rules. No bullshit. We can have anything we want. Just us, man.”

“No,” Ronan corrected. “Just you.”

He clocked Kavinsky in the jaw hard enough that Adam heard the instant when knuckle cracked sickeningly against bone. It brought back memories. Memories of a broken window in his room and whiskey soaking the carpet, his heart burning in his chest and bloodied mouths. He shoved the memories away.

 _Not now_ , he told himself. _Not here._

“Alright,” Gansey said, wheeling up behind Ronan and seizing his arms. “That’s enough.”

It was almost as if Gansey had wanted Ronan to deck Kavinsky at least once before he poured water over the fire.

Ronan whirled around and it was like the entire world fell away as he met that disapproving and broken look in Gansey’s eyes. “Dude,” he breathed, voice instantly mellow. “I’m sorry.”

When Gansey didn’t reply, he added. “I can explain, I swear.”

“Have fun explaining to your beau how you come scuttering to me every time you have to fake an orgasm.”

“Shut up.” Gansey said, lightly stepping on the back of Ronan’s shoe to keep him from lunging at Kavinsky again.

Ronan settled for a string of creative curses before adding, “I’m nothing like you,” at the end.

Kavinsky just let out another hoarse laugh. “Oh on the contrary,” he trailed a finger down the length of his torso and flicked an imaginary sling-shot at them. He then shuffled right up to Ronan and pressed two fingers to Ronan’s temple. “Boom,” he said, more air than words.  
  
“One day,” he added, voice low and compelling against Ronan’s face. “You’ll fucking listen, and then…” he chuckled, a smile, forked like lightning and splicing his cheeks. “I’ll eat you alive.”

Ronan browbeated a filthy response but Kavinsky was already sauntering back up to the club.  
  
“I’ll let Ed and Eddie mop up our little mess here,” Kavinsky snapped. “Toodles!”

There was a flash of blindingly white teeth and then he was gone.

“He is garish,” Gansey said, breaking the silence.  
  
“He is a cockroach.” Ronan replied.  
  
“So enlighten us,” Adam muttered, unable to keep the edge out of his own voice. “Why were you seeking out the cockroach when I specifically told you to stay put and why are you so intent on taking the people who are just _trying to help_ down with you as you self-immolate?”  

Ronan slid his gaze to Adam, his eyes were inquisitive, his lower lip quirked and his jaw clenched. Adam felt a shiver run up his spine. Ronan was efficient at making him feel absolutely unnerved, but Adam didn’t back down. He returned the shrewd stare.

Ronan flicked his eyes away. “How about we get the fuck out of here first?” Neither Gansey nor Adam could protest to that, so Gansey made his way round back to fetch his SUV and Adam followed Ronan into his BMW, they set a meet-up point via text and peeled off.

* * *

Adam had forgotten how skilled Ronan was at being quiet. He’d been so loud these past few days that it was like watching a sea of neon lights go out before being plunged back into that familiar darkness you’d come to know.

Adam stared out at the whirling flatlands through the window, the night was curtaining everything in shades of amethyst blue and jaded mauve. The taillights of cars reflected onto the glass windows, painting in reds.

Adam gave Ronan another entire minute before the silence began to press on him and he couldn’t quite take it anymore.

“Why?” he asked, voice quiet but firm.  
  
“That’s not very specific,” Ronan replied, rather impassively.  
  
Adam struggled to maintain his cool against Ronan’s predictable insubordination. “Why do you keep doing these things to yourself?”

When Ronan didn’t reply, Adam pushed on. “Earlier today you told me that you think you’re unbreakable. Is that what this is? An attempt to test your own limits and see if anything inside you actually gives?”

Ronan slid Adam a cool look. “I thought we agreed you would stop treating me like a science experiment.”

“You’re a scientist’s dream at this point. I can’t help myself.” Adam replied.

Ronan smirked but said nothing.

“Was it to get back at me?” he asked, hating how betrayed his voice sounded. “You give yourself too much credit,” Ronan rebuked.

Adam sighed but let it pass. “Aren’t you feeling the least bit of remorse? We spent hours wigging out over you.”   
  
“It wasn’t supposed to go down the way it did.” Ronan said, voice cryptic, almost hesitant.  
  
Adam tapped a finger against his own wrist and pursed his lips. “How exactly were you planning for it to go down? Why were you seeking Kavinsky out in the first place?”

“I wasn't explicitly looking for Kavinsky, you know. I was looking for trouble.”

“Synonyms,” Adam replied.

“Whatever. He’s an A grade piece of utter shit. I’m done giving him the benefit of the doubt.”

“Are you going to elaborate on that?”  
  
“I won’t repeat myself,” Ronan said, simply. It took Adam a moment to realize what he meant. He was going to have to explain himself to Gansey whether he liked it or not, so he didn’t see the point discussing it with Adam and then going over the same thing all over again with Gansey.

Adam chose to respect this despite the impatience building in his nerves, and changed the subject. “So you can take things out of your dreams, huh,” he muttered.  
  
Ronan shot him a scathing look. “Does that make you afraid?”

“No,” Adam replied, immediately. “I _am_ a little tempted to lock you up in a lab and study you, though.” he muttered. He’d meant it only jokingly, but Ronan scowled like it was something he’d thought about himself.

They were quiet again a moment until Adam’s gaze caught on the awful bleeding mess that were Ronan’s arms. He flinched at the sight, unable to comprehend how he could remain as impassive as he was or how he could even drive in his battered state. Of course, something told Adam Ronan had drove through a lot worse.

Despite himself, he said. “I could drive if you want.”  
  
“Like hell you will,” Ronan muttered.

Adam opened his mouth and then closed it again, letting it drop rather than spending another minute arguing over why Ronan wouldn’t let anyone behind his steering wheel. He cocked his head to the side instead, catching Ronan’s leather jacket in his peripheral, which was tossed carelessly into the backseat of the car. Adam suspected Ronan didn’t want to get it all bloody, so he refrained from pulling it on.

Tiny thorns and leaves still clung to his skin like bark. The lacerations reminded Adam so painfully of his Henrietta days that he had to bite the inside of his cheek and avert his gaze.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, dumbly. Of course it hurt, he supposed he just wanted an acknowledgement of the pain from Ronan, a hint that he was still human.  
  
“I’ll survive,” Ronan said, still straight-faced.

“Well, we should patch you up. You don’t want to catch an infection.”

“You’re an infection.” Ronan said crassly, an insult which Adam customarily ignored.

They made the rest of the ride in silence, by the time they made it to Monmouth, Gansey was already equipped with a first aid kit and a can of beer, which he tossed at Ronan, who caught it delightedly at his chest.

Adam shot Gansey a withering look as he got out of the car behind Ronan.  
  
“It’s just a single can,” he said, in his defence. “It only contains 4.2% of alcohol, which essentially, isn’t enough to get even a twelve year old schoolgirl drunk.”  
  
Adam merely shook his head, he was in way over it anyway.

Gansey and Ronan were incongruous at this point, they didn’t match with the rest of the banal world Adam had grown up getting to know. They were like storybook characters, everything about them, from Gansey’s quest to his quirky cardboard sculpture of a city to Ronan’s ability to make his dreams into tangible things and that tattoo that snaked up his spine.

All these little things about them, soaked in magic. Even their handsome faces and the way they carried themselves, as if they were forces of nature rather than people.

Adam felt even smaller and dustier in their presence, within the bubble of this new, ineffable knowledge that magic was real. And yet, it was more a pleasing feeling than an annoying one because the world had just grown four sizes bigger; which perhaps meant that there was still place for him somewhere within its cavernous and ever-expanding depths.

Trying to fathom everything that Ronan was and processing all of this newfangled information was like trying to fit a square shaped plate into a round hole. Impossible, which was quickly becoming the watchword in Adam Parrish’s life.

Once they were settled into Gansey’s home, the scent of rustic books and laundry detergent, coffee and moss-covered stones became strangely soothing and dizzying.

The intervention began.  
  
Gansey was stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his left leg shook impatiently, his eyes were rapt on Ronan’s. He didn’t necessarily look furious, merely weary. Not that anybody else would’ve been able to tell considering the way he stood with his spine so straight Adam had to wonder if he had a metal rod shoved up there.

Sometimes, Adam was thankful for his keen observation skills.

“Explain yourself, Ronan. You’ve got ten minutes to plead your case in front of the jury.” Gansey started. Ronan had thrown himself into the couch in front of Gansey, boots up and dangling over past the armrest as he sipped on the single can of beer he was permitted.

He had bandaged his own wounds as he’d threatened to bite Gansey’s fingers off if he tried, he’d done a poor job of it, but Adam was just glad he’d covered all that ruined skin up.

He was still feeling queasy behind the eyes. Blood. Dreams. Magic. Headaches. There was nothing in this universe that he could trust anymore. Ronan was a defiance in every sense of the word. A defiance of the cardinal laws of nature.

“I just wanted to race, man, but Kavinsky… He could _do_ things, Gansey! He’s exploiting Cabeswater, stealing shit from his dreams whenever he likes. He’s treating the dreamscape like his own personal Walmart from hell. He wanted to show me what we… er… what _I_ could do if I tried things his way.” He explained. “What I didn’t see coming, stupidly enough, was the fucker dragging me to The Oracle and getting his monkeyboys to spike my drink.”

Adam had several questions. Cabeswater? Walmart? Dreamscapes? How someone like Ronan could let himself get dragged by someone like Kavinsky when Adam had been trying for days to get him to cooperate? It was a conversation however, for a later time.

“Right, yes, yes,” Gansey said, pushing his glasses up towards the bridge of his nose. “So you are taking approximately none of the blame, then. We stumbled upon an absolute _zoo_ and all you have to say for yourself is that Kavinsky made you do it?”

“I’m sorry, okay? What else do you want from me?”

An apology was a strange thing to hear coming out of Ronan’s mouth. Adam had a feeling Gansey was the only one in his world who Ronan deemed deserving of one. It almost made him envious, considering he’d let Ronan get away with a lot without ever coercing him into apologizing to Adam.

Gansey sighed, looked exquisitely nonplussed. “What I want, Ronan is for you to stop actively trying to get yourself killed. You haven’t lost everything, alright? I’m here for you. This gentleman here, he’s been hired to be there for you, too, by a brother who still cares about you no matter what you think. I’m pretty sure Declan would’ve been by your side himself if you’d just given him half the chance. Instead you pushed him away and in turn you lost the privilege of seeing Matthew again, too. It’s high time you realize that the world’s still here, all you have to do is give it a chance.”

Ronan went dead quiet, Adam couldn’t quite gauge what was going through his mind, but he could practically feel him bristling. “Declan took him away from me! He knows I would never harm a single hair on Matthew’s blond little head but he still took him away!”

“Maybe that’s because you almost killed a man,” Gansey muttered.  
  
“Like he didn’t deserve it.” Ronan snapped.  
  
“Ronan, it wasn’t your call to make.”  
  
“It _became_ my call to make the second he fucking bludgeoned my father to death!” Ronan’s voice was a flame, wild enough to burn the entire building down. Gansey visibly sobered at this, looking a little at a loss for words for the first time since Adam had met him.  
  
At this, Ronan shot off the couch. “I’m out of here,” he muttered.

“ _Ronan_ -”  
  
“I’m sorry, Gansey. I really am. I didn’t mean to give you a heart attack. I didn’t mean to get pulled into Kavinsky’s shitstorm, but don’t take this as an excuse to convince me into welcoming my brother back with open arms because it’s not going to happen. This is my life now, what’s left of it anyway. I’ve accepted it and it’s high time you accept it, too.”

When Gansey tried again, Ronan turned a piercingly cold look on him that shut him up for good. “Maybe if you stopped living in daydreams for one second you’d realize that the world is what happens when you’re too busy getting your head stuck up a dead king’s ass.” With that, he was already bounding down the stairs.

Adam shot Gansey a helpless look. “I’ll try and talk to him,” he amended.  
  
“Please,” Gansey breathed, pressing a mint leaf to his tongue and turning on his heels, his expression clearly pained. Adam merely nodded, bid him a goodnight and followed Ronan back outside before he was forced to take the bus home again.

* * *

When they made it back to the house, Adam immediately cornered Ronan.    
  
“Not so fast,” Adam said. “I want to talk to you.”  
  
“Always the inquisitor,” Ronan muttered, in Latin.  
  
Adam bit down the urge to respond in Latin and reveal his own grip on the language before shooting him a strict glare. “Why won’t you just let me help you?”

“There’s nothing left for you to help.”  
  
“Bullshit,” Adam said. “Matthew - I could see how much you still care. If you wanted, I could actually talk your brother into letting you see him, you know. You’re still concerned for Gansey, too. You must’ve apologized to him at least thrice tonight, which is funny for somebody who claims to feel nothing.”

There was venom in Ronan’s eyes, but he didn’t back down from Adam, who had unconsciously backed him into a wall. “You are so bored in life,” he muttered, still playing it indifferent.

“You didn’t take those pills Kavinsky shoved down your throat on purpose, either. It shows a great deal of self-restraint to be able to function perfectly fine despite the substances you were exposed to today, considering your history.”  
  
“Do I win a prize?” Ronan asked, arching an eyebrow.  
  
“Give me a chance,” Adam constrained.

“No,” Ronan’s voice was still calm and so was his expression, but Adam could tell he was close to striking a nerve, so he pushed on. “What’s your grand plan, then? Wither away into nothing? Proceed to becoming cellmates with Kavinsky in prison? Go out in a fiery crash?”

“I don’t feel the need to plan out every little detail of my life like you do. See, I may be a disaster, but I’m secure in my disaster.” Ronan said, eyes deadlocked on Adam’s. “Too bad I can’t say the same for you.”

Adam opened his mouth, but Ronan wasn’t done, apparently. “How pathetic does a man have to be to voluntarily accept money to spend every waking hour sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong? Is it just to distract yourself from your own failures?”

“You’re doing this on purpose,” Adam said, voice tight. His throat felt like a disease. Something cold and chafing crawling up his windpipe. “You’re just trying to get under my skin.”

“I’m just emulating what I’ve watched you do since you came into my life,” Ronan rebuked, without missing a beat. It was like he had a vicious comment up his sleeve for anything Adam threw at him. Adam closed his eyes for a millisecond and forced all the rage and acrimony back down, when he spoke again, his voice was neutral but there was an incredulous lour on his face.

“I know you want the world to think you’re a terrible person. Maybe you’ve even got everyone fooled but I’m not as easy to deceive. _I’ve_ actually been a terrible person, I probably still am one, so take it from me. You may look and act the part, but you’re not it.”

It was enough to make Ronan go ballistic. Instead, they just stared each other down a moment before Ronan wrapped his cold fingers around Adam’s wrist, tight enough to cut Adam’s blood supply off, tight enough that he was sure Ronan could feel his pulse galloping through his veins.

“Still not afraid of me?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.  
  
Adam’s stomach was melting, he could barely feel his heart in his chest as he gulped and mustered a firm dismissal. His eyes didn’t leave Ronan’s electric blue ones for a second.   
  
“Not one bit.” 

“You’ve heard about the things I’ve done,”   
  
“Out of desperation,” Adam pitched. “Out of grief and an unquenchable need for retribution, which is understandable.”

“Stop trying to make sense of me.”  
  
“I will,” Adam said. “When your brother stops paying me.”  
  
“That can be arranged.”

For a moment, despite the weight of Ronan’s hand around his wrist and the acidic look on his face, Adam maintained his calm. “Tempting,” he said. “You are _way_ above my paygrade.”

Ronan’s grip loosened on his wrist.  
  
“But you can do things. Incredible things. I’m left intrigued. No, I want to get to the bottom of you now. I want to help you get back on your feet. I think deep down, you want that for you, too. Even if you’re too goddamn stubborn to admit it.”

Ronan dropped his wrist in favor of pressing a hand to Adam’s mouth, inadvertently shushing him. “Shh,” Ronan said. “I’ve heard fucking enough.”

“Maybe _you're_ the one who’s afraid,” Adam gathered, lips working against the cool length of Ronan’s fingers, words slightly muffled. “Afraid of what might happen if you actually put up an effort to heal. You’re just so used to feeling this way now, it’s like you’re convinced you’ve crossed that line in the sand, that there’s no going back. I’m here to tell you that this isn’t the point of no return. You _can_ come back from this. You can get better.”

“Fuck you, Parrish.”

“Does this mean I have effectively shut you up?” he asked, ironically, considering the palm of Ronan’s hand was still pressed against his lips. Ronan dropped his hand like he hadn’t realized he was still holding it up and actively sidestepped out of Adam’s reach.

“This means I can’t stand to look at you anymore,” he snapped. “I’m going to bed.”

“Wait,” Adam whirled around. “Those wounds are really going to catch an infection if you don’t clean them up properly, and if they start scabbing, they could leave permanent scars.”

“Don’t care,” Ronan said, turning away from Adam.  
  
“Just let me apply a fresh set of bandages, okay?”

Ronan continued to scuffle past him like he hadn’t heard a word he’d said, but Adam didn’t care, he headed to the kitchen and filled a cup with water, fetched gauze and a box of kitchen towels, then snagged some antiseptics from his own cabinet before pounding a fist against Ronan’s shrouded door.

Pulsating electronica rose from the tiles up.   
  
It took him about five minutes of incessant pounding and empty threats before an unenthusiastic Ronan swung the door open in his face. The music only got more unbearable now that there wasn’t a door barricading it from spilling into the rest of the house like toxic gas.

Adam’s eyes widened at the sight of a peculiar creature that had fastened itself on Ronan’s shoulder.

It took him a second or two to register that it wasn’t inhuman or otherworldly like the one he’d witnessed in the parking lot of The Oracle, but a mere raven.

The corvid eyed him with an intensity to match Ronan’s.

It was the very shade of a thunderous night, its feathers were rich and striking. When it flapped its wings, either in greeting or caution, Adam thought it was beautiful, if a bit menacing.  
  
“You have a bird,” Adam said, not really a question.

“You can call her Chainsaw,” Ronan replied. “For the record, she’d gouge your eyes out upon my request.”

“I don’t think pet ravens are legal in this state, Ronan,”

“Nor is attempted murder,” Ronan muttered breezily. “Didn’t stop me from doing that.”

Despite his far-from-friendly demeanor, for the first time since Adam had stepped foot into this house, Ronan was letting him into his bedroom. He took a step back so that Adam could amble in without stumbling and sending a handful of items hurtling to the ground.

“Don’t touch anything,” Ronan warned, as Chainsaw took off from his shoulder to peck at a leaning tower of silver pennies that she’d perhaps stocked herself, on his nightstand.

Adam set his stuff on the edge of Ronan’s bed before straightening up to survey the room. The raven’s cage was what caught his eye first, impeccably clean, which formed a certain juxtaposition with the chaotic cataclysm that was the rest of the space.

Adam wouldn’t have been exaggerating if he’d said that it looked like it had been hit by some sort of mega storm, a kind of freakish hybrid of every calamity there ever was.

It was not so much filth as it was clutter: shovels and swords leaned in the corners, speakers and printers piled by the wall. Bizarre objects in between: an old suitcase with vines trailing out of it, a potted tree that seemed to be humming to itself, a single cowboy boot in the middle of the floor.

There was an alarm clock that didn’t sing so much as leak golden crumble, a snowglobe that constantly seemed to whirl, even without anybody having to shake it and a guitar that was also a coat dispenser that’s head seemed shaped akin to a swiss knife.

It smelt like grass and gasoline and cologne and clay. On the ceiling, there was a green screen of stars. Adam was pretty sure every single one of these items were dreams, he thrilled with the knowledge of it.

_Ronan Lynch. What a magnificent creature, indeed._

He felt like he’d stepped into a museum of strange things. Oddities of all kinds seeped from every corner. Even the curtains and blinds were lapped in flower vines or shrubs or rhinestones or what looked suspiciously like bullet holes.  
  
“So this is why your room’s forbidden,” Adam managed, afraid his ordinary voice would disturb the mystical semblance of the place. Once again, Adam couldn’t shake the feeling of being inferior, of being too mundane and dirty to deserve to even stand in a place like this.  
  
Ronan’s room gave him the same vibe he’d gotten from Monmouth earlier, and what he imagined one would feel like when stepping into ancient ruins bleeding with history. It was thirst and enchantment and wonders and curiosities. It was a home fit for a king.

With all these colorful dreams at his fingertips, Adam couldn't understand how Ronan could feel so dull about his life. 

Ronan merely shrugged one shoulder and smacked some clutter off of his bed so that he could collapse on it. Adam coerced himself to get it together and sat down in front of Ronan, who to Adam’s surprise, brandished his arms without dispute. Adam didn’t want to question this pleasant instance of tolerance, so he got to work.

They were quiet as Adam wrapped loose fingers around Ronan’s forearm to keep him still as he began to peel the dirty bandages off of his skin. He did it gently, so as not to make it hurtful, even though he knew Ronan probably wouldn’t feel it.

Pain was a language they both spoke.

Adam knew that once you’d been torn open enough times, there came a point where the gore didn’t bother you, where you became numb to your own suffering.

He could feel Ronan’s gaze on him like a gun pointed at his head as he cleaned out the deeper scratches still ripe with dried blood using a couple of cotton balls and antiseptic. The next time he spared him a glance, Ronan was staring at the ceiling, the back of his head pressed against the headboard, eyes strangely starry.

He seemed lost. Adam decided that the stark and charming lines of his face were rather difficult not to get swept up in, when he wasn’t trying to pick a fight with everything that possessed a pulse, anyway. He shook the idle thought off and went back to cleaning his cuts.

“You’re suspiciously good at this,” Ronan said. “Interned as a nurse, did we?”

“I used to clean up cuts all the time,” he didn’t say it was his own wounds that had often needed tending. Silence fell upon them again, but it didn’t last for long.

“Can I ask you a question?” Adam asked, as he gently took Ronan’s other arm and held it over his own thigh, twisting it around a little to check for hidden injuries.

“If I say no will you leave me in peace?” Ronan replied, arching a dark eyebrow.

“Probably not,” Adam said, honestly. “How does it work?” he added.

When Ronan merely blinked at him, Adam ran a faint finger down the deep cut he was working on that sprouted from the back of Ronan’s elbow and zigzagged off his wrist into the heel of his palm. “This, dreaming. I want to understand the mechanics of it. I mean, when did you first discover you had this ability? Is it genetic or did you develop it somehow? How do you control it?”  
  
“I don’t,” Ronan mumbled. “It’s not exactly like there’s a handbook.”  
  
“No, but you could make one,” Adam said.

Ronan scowled. “It’s not so simple.”

“But it is for Kavinsky, isn’t it? That’s what you meant when you were telling Gansey that he could do things, right? He’s been conducting lessons with you.”

Ronan didn’t confirm or deny this, but Adam took his silence as an affirmative.

“They’re dreams,” Ronan explained. “They’re not something you can compartmentalize into one of your shitty textbooks. They have minds of their own. All of my creations do. They tick and tock senselessly because dreams aren’t meant to be made sense of.”

“Fascinating, still,” Adam breathed, clasping his hand around Ronan’s wrist and gauzing the edges of an angry purple gash. He was steadily aware of how surprisingly warm the skin at Ronan’s pulse point was and his heartbeat as it thrummed softly against Adam’s thumb and forefinger.

“Are you done?” Ronan asked, tone impatient all of a sudden.

“Almost,” Adam confirmed.

“Ronan,”  
  
“What now?”

“Do you ever think your dreams hurt you because you want them to hurt you?”  
  
“The fuck kind of implication is that, Parrish?” 

“It’s just… You must be able to control them to some extent, otherwise you would’ve been more worried about the fact that you let a pterodactyl loose into the sky. So if you can control some dreams, why wouldn’t you be able to control others? I just reckon that if dreams are at all a reflection of the dreamer, then they must be fashioned akin to him too.”

“Thank you for the input, wise ass. I’ll upload it into the database.”

Adam rolled his eyes and finished cleaning the last of Ronan’s wounds before standing up. “You know, next time, a mere ‘thank you’ will suffice.”

“There isn’t a single inch of you that I’m thankful for.” Despite the harsh growl of his words, Ronan hadn’t bothered meeting his eyes, like his heart wasn’t into the insults anymore.

Adam couldn’t keep the smug grin off his face as he began to exit the room. “Keep telling yourself that,” he said, lightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodnight.”

Ronan’s rancorous music was back up to deafening magnitudes almost immediately, but Adam could tell he’d punctured a small hole into the unsinkable ship that was Ronan’s facade. It was more progress than even he’d expected to make given the hiccup.

Adam took a long shower and changed into something comfortable enough to sleep in, although he stayed up another four hours to prep for an important paper he had due the following Tuesday.

In between chapters he couldn’t help but let his mind drift to the prospect of unimaginable things. Dream things and kings and the fervent flapping of Chainsaw’s wings and the way his chest caught every time Ronan looked unflinchingly into his eyes.

He was a Pandora’s box of warring emotions by the time his head hit the pillow and exhaustion finally engulfed him into a soft, dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- what do you guys think? don't forget to leave me a comment! :)  
> \- i'd really hugely appreciate it if someone helped me spread the word around a little about my fic by the way, just gonna put that out there, aha.  
> \- i know kavinsky's a fucking tool all i can promise atm is that he's here for a reason  
> \- "i'm secure in my disaster" me, everyday of my life, basically. #twinningwiththedreamer  
> \- check out my [tumblr](winterblues.tumblr.com) maybe?


	7. STAY GOLD, PONYBOY

_"How much can you change and get away with, before you turn into someone else, before it's some kind of murder?" - Richard Siken_

* * *

Ronan was back to smoothly avoiding Adam and refraining from talking to and/or even looking in his general direction after that night at the Oracle. Just when he’d made the mistake of assuming that they were making progress, Ronan took five steps backwards and went to pretending like nothing ever happened. Adam was once again tempted to bolt and run, yet once again, he chose perseverance over precaution.

Adam gave him another three days of practised silence before reeling in the rope. On Saturday morning when Ronan was in the shower, he snuck into the boy’s room and pulled the plug on his music system before disconnecting the wires and taking them back to his room; where he shoved them into his own closet. It was a petty move, but he was hoping it was just irksome enough to spark a reaction. 

He was in the kitchen preparing coffee when he heard Ronan begin to curse like a sailor on steroids. The sluggish and loud squelching of his heavy boots against the staircase deliberate and irascible.  
  
Adam simply whistled a soft tune beneath his breath and played innocent.  
  
“If you’re looking for the plug you’re not getting it until you start cooperating with me,” Adam said nonchalantly, as he spread some butter on toast. Without turning a glance his way he added, “Would you like some breakfast? We’ve got poached eggs and toast.”

Ronan merely let out a low growl and strolled over to the cabinet above the stove, he shoved hard at Adam’s shoulder as he extended an arm to wrench it open. He then yanked out a box of Lucky Charms and poured the cereal directly into his mouth.

When he did turn his gaze on Adam, he made a whole show of crunching the flakes all rowdily, Adam watched him swallow before Ronan shot him a grin that was nine parts hostility and one part amusement. It was his wordless way of saying he was onto Adam and wouldn’t budge that easy. Adam spent the rest of the day working on his paper for Psych class. On Sunday morning, rancorous music was once again blasting from the closed doors of Ronan’s bedroom, pooling into the rest of the house like a restless river of caterwauling notes. When Ronan came out of his room that evening, he smirked at Adam once again.  
  
“So you dreamt yourself a stereo system,” Adam muttered, hoping he sounded more irked than awed. Ronan’s silence was confirmation enough as he began to head for the doorway, he grabbed his car keys off the walls and was out the door in seconds. Adam had merely half a minute to groan, abandon his work station (a tea table smothered with classwork and three books fat enough to cram a small animal in), grab his wallet and bound on after him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he snapped as he stepped out into the crisp evening air. The sky had taken on a muddy shade of pink, clouds swivelled about the horizon like swelling bruises. It smelled like autumn leaves and asphalt. The wind was hollow and sounded like somebody whispering softly; secretively.

Ronan didn’t bother responding as he slid into his sharp-edged black car. Adam let out his seven-billionth sigh of exhaustion as he quickly cursed and pulled himself into the passenger seat before Ronan could take off all on his lonesome again.

“Stop making me repeat myself, I know you heard the question. Answer me,” when all Ronan did was press his hand to the gear shift Adam leaned forward and glowered at Ronan. “ _Answer_ me, goddammit.”

Ronan fixed him with an unimpressed stare. It was obvious he was doing this specifically to get on his nerves. “I warned you, Ronan,” Adam’s voice was poison. “I told you I’m not going to play any games.” Adam waited a beat before he dug into his pocket for his phone. “If I have to take matters into my own hands, I will. Don’t make this ugly.”

Ronan smirked, like this was more entertaining to him than threatening.  
  
“I’ll leave,” Adam warned. “I’ll leave and I’ll make sure to tell your brother that you’re not fit for society on my way out.”

This, finally, provoked a response.

Ronan pursed his lips.“That would be a lie.”

“That would be debatable.” Adam replied.

Then, “Kavinsky,” he said.

Adam stared at him incredulously for an age before shaking his head. “No fucking way. Not again.”

“You’re free to walk away. You seem eager to take your leave as it is.”

Adam ignored the not-so-subtle taunt. "Why do you keep running back to that sociopath?”  
  
Ronan was quiet as he whirred the car to motion.

“Those lessons,” Adam guessed. “They’re not worth it. He’ll try to drug you again, or worse. Have you seen the way he looks at you?” Ronan’s lips tugged at that but he didn’t bother making comment as he took a swift, illegal turn and they pushed off the road.

Adam’s stomach was in his throat as he tried to find his voice again, the glint in Ronan’s blue eyes was staunch and dangerous. “Why?” Adam managed. “I can tell that you have nothing but contempt for the guy, so _why_ is this so important to you?”

“Kavinsky’s it,” Ronan said. “There’s nobody else to teach me.”

“But why are you so desperate to learn?”

When it became apparent that Ronan wasn’t going to grace that question with an answer, Adam wrapped an insistent hand around the boy’s forearm, his fingers warm against the cold leather of Ronan’s jacket. “I recognize that hellbent look on your face, Lynch. I see it in the mirror every morning. This isn’t just because you’re trying to hone your skills or whatever. This is a pursuit.”

Ronan’s voice was callous as stones. “No _this_ , Parrish, is retribution.”

He yanked his arm out of Adam’s grasp.  
  
“I don’t understand,” Adam replied.

There was something deadening in Ronan's eyes just then, like something had gone cold inside of him. Even the brutal and rarefied lines of his face, in the grim, yellowing light of the streetlamps, cut by shadows, looked alien and imaginary. “Quemadmodum gladius neminem ocidit; occidentis telum est.”

The words didn’t match the mouth they were coming from. He looked like a teenage boy with a temper and a countenance like a razor, a rebel with a cause in his dark jacket and dark car. The Latin quote he spoke, sounded like something a hundred-year-old prophet would say.

Immediately, Adam translated the phrase.  _A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer’s hand._

“That man you beat half to death,” Adam recalled. “He wasn’t really the killer, was he?”

He realized that he might’ve let Ronan privy to the fact that he understood Latin, but that was a concern for another time.

Ronan’s numb expression didn’t falter, but his shoulders tensed considerably.

A few things clicked, then. Ronan allowing Kavinsky to push him around when he would’ve viciously cut anybody else off at the knees for even trying, how he’d been keeping Gansey at an arm’s length, his constant attempts at making Adam turn around and leave, his mood swings and all the hours he spent locked up in his room… _plotting_.

“So let me get this straight,” Adam’s tone was bitter, but he couldn’t quite help the outrage. “Multiple brawls, two stints at the hospital, three months suffering in rehab _and_ you almost scored a one-way ticket to jail for _manslaughter_ yet you’re still thirsty for blood.”

“He has to pay,” Ronan’s infliction had lowered considerably, until it was more the suggestion of a voice than a voice itself. Despite the monotone of his words, his expression had become pained. “And he will,” Adam confirmed. “But it isn’t your job to execute the punishment.”

“He killed my father,” the words were venomous. “He _destroyed_ my family.”

Adam was quiet a moment, digesting all this insanity was leaving him a little nauseous and very uncomfortable. Magic and dream things he could still grasp, but this was a whole other ball game. This was stupid and perilous and would likely only end with bullet holes in someone’s head. There was a lot Adam was willing to forgive, tolerance was key when it came to this job, there was a lot he was even willing to wrap his head around, ocular proof never left any room for doubt but this… This was pushing every single limit. Hell, this was speeding past the limit and into volatile territory.

Ronan was swimming in dark waters, there was no doubt he would drown. Adam didn't want to be dragged down with him when he went. 

It was downright self-destructive, a streak that was abundantly palpable in everything Ronan did.

Adam may have spent years and years loathing himself, but he was also a huge advocate for self-preservation. It was difficult, but it was the only way he’d gotten himself this far. At the end of the day, survival came just as easy as breathing. You didn’t just spend every waking hour prepping for a future if you didn’t intend to make it through the year.

Managing and coping was human nature, and Adam had assimilated it down to an art form.

“What are you planning to do, then? Kill him?” Adam asked, arching an eyebrow.

“A mercy,” Ronan spat. “One he’ll be begging for once I’m finished with him.”

Adam felt a shiver skirt down his spine, both at the implication of his words and the deadly promise that twinkled in his eyes. He could try to argue, try and talk Ronan out of all this, but something told him even an earthquake couldn’t move him once he’d set his mind to something.

Ronan was not a bad person, but even the best of people could resort to the worst of acts when incited enough. Ronan looked like someone who'd had faith been tested time upon time again, and all of that pent up fury and hurt was finally coming to a head.

Adam lost himself to his thoughts. To his surprise, it was Ronan who broke the quiet.

“Look, man,” he said, with a sigh. “You don’t have to be a part of any of this. The offer’s still on the table. You can take the money and bounce. I can handle my brother.”

It was certainly a clean way out. Adam was almost heartened that Ronan was giving him one.

He would still get the money which meant he’d still be paying off his college debts plus he’d have four entire weeks of free time on his hands. He could transfer some of the cash into his savings account, maybe even look for a new job, go shopping for some new clothes and take Blue out for a fancy dinner.

He’d even get some time for himself, which was something that he’d considered practically fictional since he’d moved to New York.

Bonus: he didn’t have to worry about getting caught up in the whirlwind that would no doubt surface once Ronan actually put his deadly plan into motion. There were about a thousand things that could go wrong and Adam was already too burdened with his own issues to be taking on the load of somebody else’s. Ronan may have the finesse to pull this off, but he lacked the patience and the mental math it took to really execute such a thing without incident.

He couldn’t say that it wasn’t a tempting offer, but it also just wasn’t the way he functioned.  
  
Taking the money and skittering off would feel like cheating, it would feel like ducking out when faced against a challenge. Adam Parrish had worthy morals, even if he’d grown up somewhere that word held no meaning. Perhaps  _especially_ why.

Insurmountable odds was just another phrase, Adam knew that all the greats got where they were in the world because of an undying determination and an inclination to move even the most immovable of mountains.

Ronan Lynch was insufferable and a pest, but he was also the most intriguing person Adam had met. He was also somebody who could take a dream and turn it into something real. He was also somebody, who despite what exteriors suggested, was trying against his whole entire being to keep going despite the dismal deck he'd been handed.

Plus, Adam was convinced there was an actual person buried deep beneath that cocky, assholic exterior. Not to mention Gansey, who’d done nothing but urge him on ever since he’d met him. Adam couldn’t even imagine having that conversation, attempting to explain himself. Something in his gut told him that Gansey wasn’t the kind of person you wanted to disappoint.

Declan Lynch wouldn’t be happy either, if he were to find out. Adam’s reputation was integral to him, even if Ronan could keep his brother from blackballing him.

Anyone else would’ve thrown up their hands and ran - granted, but Adam had gotten this far, hadn’t he? He was already knee-deep in this mess the minute he decided to take up this responsibility and he wasn’t one to bail out the moment shit hit the fan. If he were to grow into a coward like his father, if the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, Adam wouldn’t have been able to stand the sight of himself.

He could hold his own, he was determined to and maybe he could even get Ronan to understand, maybe he could condense the damage somehow. They still had four weeks to tackle, the least he could do was try.

He knew there was magic in the world now, and he wouldn’t have known that if he hadn’t taken up this job so for that, he was grateful. It took his perspective on this crazy world he lived in and turned it around on its axis. It made him believe that change was not only possible, but integral.

If Ronan Lynch was possible, anything was.

So Adam waved him off. “Believe it or not, Lynch, I take this job seriously.”

Ronan stared at him in either disbelief or anger or both a moment, before shrugging and turning away. “Ah! All that integrity! My eyes burn.” He quipped.

Adam merely scoffed. “You’re going to have to try harder than that to get rid of me.”

“Okay, just remember that it was your brilliant idea to stick around when we end up in jail. Hey, maybe we’ll share a cell. Face like yours in prison, you’d be a hit with all the pedos.”

“Ha,” his laughter was dry even as an alarm went off in his head. “I’m still not falling for it.”

They didn’t talk the rest of the way but Adam stopped asking questions and Ronan did nothing but give him a fair share of odd glances. Adam had thought he would say something, but it was like all the words were drying up at the tip of his tongue so he let it slide.

They pulled into another one of Kavinsky’s dens, a clearing off the edge of nowhere, enwreathed by abandoned railway tracks and old sewage systems with no speed limits barring them. They found Kavinsky’s flashy white beast parked in the very middle. Ronan parked the BMW so that the cars were nose to nose. Kavinsky’s monkey boys braceleted him as usual, the roofs of their monster mobiles glinting suggestively under the gaslights.

Kavinsky, who was sprawled on the hood of the Mitsubishi in the same old white tank and pretentious sunglasses, instantly caught sight of them and licked the length of his middle finger in a vulgar display of… something.

“You greet your mother like that, too, you bastard?” Ronan bellowed vapidly.

Kavinsky merely chuckled like that cheap notion was the most amusing thing he’d heard all day.  
  
“Back for some more sugar, momma?”

“Fuck you, Kavinsky.”

“Oh, you brought along your pet. Is he a regular on the menu now or just tonight’s special?”

“They say you shouldn’t talk with all that smoke down your gullet,” Adam called, as he dismounted the BMW and shot a swift glance at the standard cigarette that hung between his teeth. “Or you might choke on it.”

“Beauty _and_ a brain,” Kavinsky snarled, eyes rapt on Ronan. “Isn’t he a keeper.”

“Shut your piehole. You know what we’re here for. So stop wasting my time and let’s get to it.”

Once when Adam was about ten, he’d seen his first alligator on a school trip to the local zoo. He remembered being fascinated rather than terrified like most of the other kids. He remembered the sickly look in its primal eyes, the scales laden across its back. Kavinsky looked exactly like that: feral, slimy and serpentine. But there was also something dangerous about alligators, something strangely shrewd and haunting.

Kavinsky ashed his cigarette on the hood of his own car, trading it for the bright red bong that sat in between his thighs, the smoke leaving his mouth like acid fog.

“Patience, grasshopper. It’s not copping a feel.” Kavinsky slurred, sliding easily off his car so that he could stand face to face with Ronan, whose shoulders had tensed considerably.

“Cut the shit,” Ronan replied. “And let’s get to it.” He repeated himself for emphasis, a threat clearly veiled in the urgency of his words and the tightness of his voice.

Kavinsky opened his mouth to speak but Ronan was already digging the soles of his shoes over the tips of Kavinsky’s and snatching his collar in his fist. Adam hung back but uttered a quiet warning to Ronan. “I don’t want an audience,” he said.

“What about your nursemaid?” Kavinsky rasped.

It took Adam a few seconds to realize that he was being referred to and he barely managed to keep the disdain out of his voice as he replied, a little defensively. “I prefer the term chaperone.”

“He’s none of your business,” Ronan snapped. “Now get rid of them before I rip that tongue out of your head.”

Kavinsky shot Ronan a glower of turbulent disapproval before snapping his fingers at his lackeys. “Stay close, boys,” he called as the cars began to pull out of the gravel drive one after the other until they were the only ones left.

Ronan let go of Kavinsky, who stumbled on his scrawny feet to keep from keeling over. Adam wasn’t standing anywhere near him and still couldn’t quell the stench. He smelled like a brewery.

“What am I supposed to do?” Adam asked, as Ronan followed Kavinsky to his car. Ronan paid him no heat, like he might as well have been invisible, but Kavinsky slithered him a smile. “You can stay and watch,” he purred, his tone lewd as could be. “I see you’re the type.”  
  
“No thanks,” Adam replied, tightly. “I have better things to do than cater to a wretch like you.”

“And the puppy bites,” Kavinsky said, his eyes like dirty cesspools.  
  
Ronan took up a post right in front of Kavinsky, conveniently blocking his view of Adam.  
  
“Don’t talk to him,” he snapped, much to Adam’s surprise.  
  
Kavinsky opened his mouth again, surely to defy Ronan’s command, but didn’t get far before Ronan pressed his fist into his throat. “I said,” he repeated. _"D_ _on’t_ talk to him.”

“Or what? You’ll claw my jugular out? Blah, blah, fucking blah. You’re all bark, princess.”

He got punched right in the throat for that and began to stutter; gagging and coughing, his hands flying to his neck in alarm. “Damn Lynch, maybe you have a spine after all.”

“Shut your face.”

They got to their strange ritual after that, this time falling asleep inside of his car rather than on top of it. Adam lingered in the back seat and made sure Kavinsky wasn’t supplying Ronan with any pacifying substances. He clearly wasn’t helping Ronan hone his dreaming out of the goodness of his heart, he had an ulterior motive and Adam wasn’t looking forward to finding out what kind of angle he was working.

He could detect that behind all that loathsome wishwash, the guy was lonely and was just looking for an escape. His mistake of course, was assuming Ronan fell into the same league as him.  

For some reason, his mind kept reeling him back to the moment when Ronan had seemingly asked Kavinsky to back off of him, his infliction had been neutral enough but if Ronan wasn’t Ronan Adam would’ve said the gesture was protective; even nice, since Kavinsky’s pathetic commentary clearly made Adam - and probably anyone else in the world - uncomfortable.

They fell out of their dream trance after about two hours, and once again, Ronan was covered in blood. Adam wasn’t sure whether it was his own or not. How did dream blood even work? Did it have a DNA type? Could it be used as a substitute for real blood? Adam had no idea, but he’d had to hold back the bile that rose in his throat at the sight of the other boy and the fact that it certainly _smelled_ like real blood.  
  
Kavinsky then drove them to the nearest gas station where they traded their bloodied clothes for fresh ones. Ronan remained furious and quiet the entire time, then they left Kavinsky to his poisons. “Catch you bitches later!” Kavinsky called behind them, in what was probably his version of a farewell. Neither of them responded as they loaded back into Ronan’s car.  
  
Adam still wanted to ask Ronan about his little act of apparent humanity, but he knew he wouldn’t get a proper answer, especially not when he was in one of his moods.  
  
As expected, Ronan didn’t bring it; or anything else up on their way back home, so he let it drop.

They carried on like that for another three days. It was the same routine every night. They’d drive to some shithole in the midst of nowhere, Kavinsky and Ronan would dream and Adam would sit in the backseat, he’d begun to bring books with him to keep him occupied during those idle hours. They would pull things out sometimes: weapons, keychains, lightning rods, other peculiarities like a box of unlimited chewing gum, strange blue luminescent flowers, x-ray vision goggles, lawn ornaments that were also coffee makers.

Other times they’d just wake up drenched in blood like on the first day. Adam never asked and merely observed in silence. He was hoping Ronan would open up to him on his own, but when that seemed like it wasn’t going to happen and Adam felt like his patience was slowly burning up; the flames turned to smoky tendrils, he waylaid Ronan with a fierce demand for answers.

He did it, however, in a way that was conversational rather than confrontational, which would hopefully make Ronan more likely to cooperate.

“I’ve been doing some digging,” Adam started.  
  
Ronan merely cocked a quick eyebrow from where he was spread out on the couch watching some movie about a car chase on television. “If you know who the culprit is, you can find the guy and sentence him to a lifetime in jail. I can help you consult a lawyer. We can gather whatever evidence is needed, I’ll help you handle all the legal fallout. There are other ways, Ronan. You don’t have to resort to this.”

“And what is ‘this’, exactly?” Adam wondered how Ronan managed to ask a curious question whilst looking so immensely disinterested in hearing the answer.

“Joseph Kavinsky, dreaming, whatever cruelty you’ve got brewing in that vengeance-filled head of yours. Ask yourself if risking your own safety and sanity is worth all this. You’re willing to put your entire life at stake - and for what? Some ghost from your past? I understand what you feel. I understand the hurt and the injustice of it all, but _there are other ways,_ Ronan.”

Ronan bristled at this, his eyes finally swivelling away from the television and meeting Adam’s. "You don’t know shit. So don’t pretend like you do, okay? It’s not healthy for you.”  
  
“Why,” Adam snapped, somehow feeling the need to rile him. “What are you threatening, Lynch? You gonna beat me half to death like you did that poor man?”

Within an instinct Ronan had grabbed a hold of his throat, he’d moved off the sofa like lightning and now there was thunder in the brilliant blue of his eyes. It was hardly tight enough to cut off his air supply, but the grip was just harsh enough to hurt.

Adam blinked at the other boy, refusing to let this sudden act of violence rattle him, if he showed Ronan even the slightest sign of weakness, it would be over and he would have lost.

 _I’m okay I’m okay I’m okay,_ he told himself repeatedly inside his head. Despite the closeness of Ronan’s face to his own, despite his cold fingers tightening slowly around his neck. Despite all the flashbacks he was having to his childhood days at the doublewide, to life back when it was a constant fistfight, he had to tell himself that it was okay. It was how he’d gotten by then, and it was how he was going to get by now.

Adam kept his face calm and his eyes rapt on Ronan. “Go ahead,” he said, in a low voice. “I know you won’t hurt me.”

“Oh, really,” Ronan looked just as amused as he was furious now. “And what makes you say that?” his grip strengthened just a little bit, and it still wasn’t enough to block his windpipe, but panic was a dull and crippling pang inside his chest.

“Because you’re a good person.” Adam insisted.

Ronan’s eyes bore into his own, dark and terrible and kaleidoscopic. Adam stared back with equal intensity, waiting to see which one of them broke first. Ronan continued his silent glaring for a few endless seconds before loosening his grip. Adam's eye caught the glinting crucifix that Ronan wore around his neck at all times. He wondered if it was out of a sense of religion or out of an ironic sense of the loss of one that spurred Ronan to keep wearing it.  
  
“I feel sorry for you,” Ronan snapped, dropping his hands to his sides and spinning on his heel. “You’re so fucking misinformed.” The tone of his voice was still incendiary, but the tension in his shoulders had eased. “I feel sorry for you, too,” Adam rebuked. “It must be exhausting trying so hard to come off as something you’re not.”

Ronan snatched the remote off the coffee table and shut the TV off. “I’ll do what I have to do and it’s best you stay out of the way when things go south, Parrish.”

“Enlighten me then. How do you plan on taking Greenmantle down?”

Ronan stilled, his jaw clenching. “How do you know that name?”

“I told you, I did some digging.”

“You mean snooping.”

Adam shrugged. “Relative terms,”  
  
Ronan huffed. Something tricky playing in his eyes, like he was waging an internal war with himself. “I’m going to do to him what he did to me,” he replied, rather vaguely, but with enough menace and disgust to fill an ocean.

“And what’s that?”  
  
“Destroy every part of him that bleeds.”  
  
“How?”

“I’m going to find someone he loves and then I’m going to kill them.”

If Ronan detected the absolute outrage on Adam’s face, he didn’t react to it. “You’re going to commit murder,” he managed, his words coming out as a startled gasp.  
  
“I’m going to make him _think_ I did. See, I’ve killed versions of myself before, in dreams, and that’s what I’ve been practising with Kavinsky. Making a double is extremely difficult, you have to get the person down to a tee, but it’s not impossible. I’m not killing a real person, just a fabricated one that happens to look like them.”

“That’s deranged,” Adam mustered, shaking his head. “You’re deranged.”

Ronan’s smile was like a knife’s worst edge. “Finally, you’re coming to see things as they are. Good for you, Parrish. Good for you.”

It was only when he’d turned and disappeared into his room and Adam had taken the time to reevaluate their entire discussion that he realized how crass and unprofessional he’d been. They were strictly taught not to use such forgone terms whilst dealing with patients, and Adam had just flat-out accused Ronan of being crazy. Even under the circumstances, guilt was a rapid burn in his stomach. It wasn’t right.

So he made his way across the living room and knocked twice on Ronan’s ajar door, just out of respect for his privacy. There was a part of him that was sure Ronan wouldn't want to see him, but half a minute later, the door flung wide open.  
  
Ronan acknowledged his presence with a toothy smile that was drenched in sarcasm before turning his back to him and digging through his drawers for something.

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Adam said, when he realized Ronan wasn’t going to commence the conversation. He lingered by Ronan’s door frame instead of stepping in.

“What are you hinting at, Ponyboy?” he asked. “I can’t keep track of all of your wisdom.”

“That last part. I - I didn’t mean to imply that you’re retarded. It was indecorous of me.”

Ronan half-turned, only to mockingly mouth the word 'indecorous' at him, before turning back. 

Adam's feet were sinking deeper into his shoes, but he continued. “I usually have a brain-to-mouth filter but I just… It was a reaction born of shock. Instinctive. It still doesn’t make it right but -” Ronan cut him off, waving his words off as if they stank. “I don’t like people with brain-to-mouth filters,” he said. “That reaction of yours was probably the most honest thing you’ve done since you signed up to be my keeper.”

“I -”

“Save it, Parrish. It’s cool. I value honesty above anything else.”

“I’m surprised you value anything at all,” Adam muttered, a little gingerly.

He was hoping Ronan would apologize too. It was stupid, expecting a man who rarely seemed to grasp the concept of a thing such as regret to choke up an apology, but he _had_ just made a flamboyant show of violence towards Adam after all. Clients were usually sent straight back to rehab for pulling such stunts, there were even cases of sober companions who'd dropped their clients in a heartbeat and sued for having their lives threatened. 

And yet here Adam was, giving Ronan a free pass - _again_. 

He'd always been the kind of person to wholeheartedly scrutinize his own decisions, but ever since he'd met Ronan Lynch he found that he was questioning himself more and more, like he'd lost the precarious footing he'd stood so confidently on before.

Ronan only let out a hoarse laugh but said nothing as he found whatever he was looking for and slipped it into his back pocket. “Ronan,” Adam said, his voice tense. “I can’t let you do this.”

“I’m sorry, did I for once imply that I gave a shit about what you can and can’t let me do? Read my lips.  _I’m not asking for your permission_.” Ronan admonished, voice heated.

“You need to focus on recovery. You need to focus on yourself. You’re more important than some petty revenge fantasy.”

“Spare me your Mother-Teresa bullshit, alright?”

Adam heaved a sigh, pressing his fingers into his eyes. When he spoke again, his words were resolute. “What if I can come up with an alternative plan, one that still screws Greenmantle over but keeps you from committing a felony?”  
  
“A play-act felony,”

“Same shit.”

Ronan didn't look like he was going to buy into what Adam would put on the table, but he did look like his interest had been piqued. “Do pray tell.”

“I looked up all the public stuff last night. Double PhD, home in Boston, three speeding tickets in the last eighteen months, blah blah blah.” Adam explained.

It had taken him only a little bit of time to get the readily available version of Colin Greenmantle’s life story. And only a little bit more time to realize that it wasn’t really the life story he needed. He didn’t need to undo the web, he needed to spin a new one. “I can come up with all the bits of evidence you’ll need to dream and how we’d need to bury them.”

“So instead of subjecting him to a nightmare, you want to fabricate a crime.”

“Or a series of crimes,” Adam said, with a nod.

“You want me to lie,” Ronan’s expression was sour, and his words equally so.

“Well, yeah,” Adam said, like it was obvious, feeling rather unsettled at the pure disdain in the other boy’s voice. “Is it really any worse than killing someone who looks like a person that he cares about right in front of him?” Ronan’s expression was dire, his eyes hinted he disagreed but there was something assenting in the way he watched Adam, like he was seeing Adam, really _seeing_ him for the very first time.  
  
Adam’s stomach couldn’t handle the weight of Ronan’s gaze. He felt a little nauseous when he spoke again. “Look - I know it isn’t exactly ethical, but it’s the smarter and not to mention safer option. Plus, it’ll be enough to pack him off to prison for a long, long time.”

“It’s not like you’re in a place to judge.” Adam pushed, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice when Ronan didn’t react. “And it’s not like this Greenmantle’s some kind of saint if he’s hiring hitmen to kill people.”

The sun was setting outside the window, the binds casting aureate shadows across Ronan’s face. He continued to stare listlessly at nothing, the light making the hard edges of him appear softer, more diluted somehow. Adam recognized that it was a stray observation and catalogued it away as unhelpful. He moved forward then and parked himself right in front of the other boy’s face, snapping his fingers to force Ronan to meet his eyes. “Why is this so difficult for you to grip?”

When Ronan looked at him again, something in Adam’s stomach sunk. There was horror on his face, and he didn’t know if that horror was meant to be for himself or for Adam. There was a part of Adam that let himself consider the fact that no matter what Ronan seemed to come off as, this was still a person who could dream into being an atomic bomb and chose instead, to manifest beautiful birds and beautiful cars and EpiPens for his friend who was afraid of bees.

Adam didn’t like to think of himself as a bad person - he’d spent enough of his pathetic life in a self-loathing haze, but even he wouldn’t have been able to trust himself if he had powers like that. Ronan’s dreaming was the primary reason Adam was so adamant to get through to him. It proved what he’d suspected all along, that Ronan, despite the soulless, despicable act, was a good person.

"You are the weirdest do-gooder I've ever met." Ronan said, flashing his teeth.

"That's the thing," Adam said, grimly. "I'm not." 

Ronan's smile was a fiery star spreading across the dark, demanding contours of his face. "Stay gold, Ponyboy."

Adam's stomach hitched. "You didn't say yes or no."  
  
“I’ll do it,” he finally said, instead of explaining himself.  
  
“Why the sudden change of heart?” Adam didn’t believe for one second that his persuasive techniques had worked a charm. Ronan gave Adam a long, hard stare before he said anything, and when he did, Adam recoiled so quickly he slammed his spine against the back wall. It wasn’t out of dismay, but out of pure shock. “I dreamt Matthew.” 

Adam stared, Ronan looked away, seemingly losing interest in their conversation. “If I go to jail and if something happens to me, he’ll sleep for-fucking-ever.” Ronan met his eyes once again, inching his face so close to Adam’s that Adam could count the veins in his neck. “That’s why.”  
  
“Jesus, Ronan.” He managed, but Ronan was already walking away.  
  
Adam stood there for a long time: stupid, silent, flabbergasted. He’d managed to digest the fact that Ronan could dream birds and showerheads and blood and snowglobes… He’d even chosen to believe Ronan when he’d claimed he could create a living double of a real human being… but a person - a fully functioning, living, breathing human? It was too much for him to wrap his mind around, it was just too much.

Adam felt his brain shutting off as he finally peeled away from the wall and trudged back to his own room.

He spent the next three hours planning the layout of a series of perverse murders.  _Stay gold, Ponyboy,_ Ronan's musical taunt kept playing on a loop in his head. If nothing gold could stay, he would just have to make due with the charcoal. This job had taken a turn for the worst and he knew it. He was meant to be helping Ronan cope with his addiction, not aiding him in his suicidal plan to send a dangerous criminal - who’d likely dealt with much worse than what Adam Parrish had in store for him - away for good, not aiding him in a whim of retribution.  
  
What he _did_ know, or at least what he'd come to understand was that this was the only real way to help Ronan and thus he was still technically doing his job. What he did know was that it was too late now, he’d gone and made this crazy decision, and he was sticking to it. He finally had an end goal in sight, and Ronan Lynch was the cure just as much as the cause. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- please leave me a comment before you go. :)  
> \- man, this story is getting kinda long. i hope y'all will bear with me, i know it's an agonizingly slow-burn, but doesn't that just make the eventual prospect of them finally getting together that much more satisfying? it's just that i've set the stakes in such a way that nothing will come easy to these boys, i'm sorry, i know you hate me. xD  
> \- can i blame the muse? ;)  
> \- yeah, if you haven't already guessed, they're going to do to Greenmantle what they did to him in canon, but not without a few of my twist and turns.  
> \- yes this entire chapter was just an excuse to quote that one robert frost poem but ALL ON BOARD FOR PONYBOY PARRISH GIVE ME A HELL YEAH !!  
> \- thank you so much for reading, fellow pynch fan, lovely moonbeam! <3


	8. Requiem For A Dream

_You are imperfect. You are wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging." - Brene Brown_

* * *

He worked on the Greenmantle project until he couldn't keep his stinging eyes open for any longer and fell asleep slumped exhaustedly on his desk-chair. He woke up to a harsh knock on the door. Adam pushed his head off the desk and rubbed his eyes, looking up rather groggily.   
  
He was surprised to find Ronan lingering at the threshold, arms crossed, expression hard and unreadable.

“How long have you been standing there?”  
  
Ronan didn’t bother answering that. Instead, he just huffed and pointed an accusatory finger. “Now _you_ tell _me_ something,” Adam ran a hand through his hair and nodded. “Anything.”  
  
“Most people would’ve bolted by now. Why are you sticking around? Why are you helping me?”

Before Adam could answer, Ronan put his hands up. “And don’t say that it’s your fucking diligence, this isn’t a part of the job description and I think you and I both know that.”

Once again, Adam tried to speak, and once again, Ronan cut him off, his eyes blazing. “You could out me, you said it yourself my fate’s practically in your hands. So why don’t you do it? Why don’t you call Declan right now and tell him everything? You could send me packing right back to the nuthouse.”

Adam heard the chilly cadence of his voice, the unspoken challenge. It was almost a silent call to arms, and it was so ridiculous Adam wanted to grab Ronan by the shoulders and shake the war out of him. Adam was tired of fighting, even if Ronan never seemed to run out of ammunition. 

“Are you done?” Adam asked, patiently. When Ronan just scowled, Adam continued. “Now can I ask you something?”   
  
“Don’t pull that cheap parlor trick on me,” Ronan snapped. “What?” Adam asked.   
  
“It’s what you psychiatrists do. You answer questions with questions. Try to turn the tables. It’s not going to work on me, asshole.”

“I’m not a psychiatrist. At least - not yet.” Adam said, before standing up and walking over to the other boy. “Why are you trying to provoke me?”

This left Ronan puzzled. “Huh?”   
  
“Things are going your way, aren’t they?”   
  
“Like I trust you.”   
  
“You’ve got to trust someone.”

“I do. I trust myself.”

“You know what I mean. You need to let someone in, Ronan. You can’t turn yourself into this isolationist. It’s not healthy, not for you and not for what’s left of your family.”   
  
“You need to stop pretending like you know everything about me.” Ronan growled. 

“It’s not like you’re ever open to sharing, so I make my assumptions.” Adam said, with a nonchalant shrug. When Ronan just stared at him blankly, Adam sighed. “If you promise to work with me, I’ll work with you. We can both have what we want.”

Ronan grinned darkly. “So your expertise does come at a price.”

Adam considered this. “Let’s just say I’m an opportunist.”

Amusement glittered in Ronan’s luminous blue eyes, like things were finally making sense to him and he could breathe easier. He then let out a scoff. “I see how it is. You want that shiny stamp of approval so bad that you’re willing to get down and gritty. You don’t care about methods as long as it heeds the results that you want.”

Adam shrugged. “I need this, not just for the money but because it looks stellar on my resume. If I complete this job with flying colors, I’m that much closer to my goal and my goal is the only thing that is important to me. So you can have your petty revenge, and who knows - perhaps I can talk some sense into you by the end of our term together. Maybe you’ll even learn to let go and give yourself and your life another chance.”

“And you get my dick brother’s money, an A plus grade and as a bonus, the satisfaction of watching me bend to your will.” Ronan was beaming, as if a halo had suddenly appeared over Adam's head. There was a smug part of him that was relieved, he had the upper hand again. Ronan thought he knew Adam, knew his motives, knew how far he was willing to go to achieve his dreams. What Ronan didn't know was that Adam Parrish was unknowable, but that he'd learned how to work his crowd in a way that tipped the scales in his favor. 

Adam merely nodded. “Yeah. I guess that sums it up.”

Ronan broke into a devious smile. “Bastard,”   
  
“Takes one to know one.” Adam replied, without missing a beat.   
  
Staying with Ronan all these days had taught him just how to fight fire with fire. Picking up his mannerisms was easy, striking a deal with the devil it turned out, was even easier. It was the only way, Adam thought that the two of them would manage to get through this without drawing blood (at least each other’s).

The next couple of days went smoother than usual, Ronan kept to himself, seemingly losing interest at picking fights or trying to instigate Adam when he came back home from classes all exhausted. Adam kept a general eye on him but otherwise, left him to his own devices. They talked little and never strayed from the newfangled and invisible line drawn between them.   
  
Adam worked on their plan, tweaking it here and there, gathering the necessary supplies, forming mental maps and pros and cons lists to make sure he was considering it from every angle, carving to life an airtight plan, one that guaranteed Mr. Colin Greenmantle a one-way ticket to prison. It wasn’t easy stuff, not only was it taking a toll on his sleeping schedule and schoolwork, but it was beginning to play tricks on his mind. He had to come up with the most awful of crimes in his head, something that would really make the public turn against him and see the man for the monster that he truly was.

Greenmantle was skilled at what he did, and he was good at covering his tracks. Adam just had to be better.

That evening, when Adam came home to check on him and take a quick drug test, he found Ronan on the bathroom floor unconscious. His face was pale, his lips slightly parted, his breathing sounded labored.

For a moment the world spun incongruently around him and a shudder passed through his body. Panic was a chisel, scooping his heart like a fist. Then something in Adam’s chest just dropped. He crouched to the floor, alarmed, and cradled Ronan’s head in his lap before pressing a finger to the base of his throat to check for pulse.   
  
Ronan’s heart rate was too rapid to be normal and he was covered in a thin sheen of sweat. There was a bottle of pills lying by his upended palm, Adam checked his eyes - which were bloodshot; pupils dilated. Thorny pinpricks were jabbing at his gut, he felt like he was bleeding out from everywhere. He took a deep breath and let it out and then did it again.   
  
He had to relax, if he panicked, he wasn’t going to be able to help Ronan. He couldn’t panic. This was not the time to panic. _It’s okay it’s okay it’s okay,_ he repeatedly told himself, as he slapped lightly at the other boy’s cheeks, trying to wake him up to no avail.   
  
It was the withdrawal symptoms, but Adam had thought Ronan had gotten over that. Everytime he’d asked before, he’d received the same answer, that he was fine and didn’t have any problems coping. Adam should have known better. Every addict had trouble staying clean, withdrawal was a natural part of the process, even for someone like Ronan.   
  
Perhaps there was a part of Ronan that had convinced himself that he wasn’t human, that he didn’t feel and respond and falter in the way other people did. Perhaps after seeing everything Adam had seen, from the way he made dreams dance atop his fingertips to the confident way he carried himself, Adam had started to believe that too.   
  
_Foolish_ , he thought. 

Apparently, Ronan was just very skilled at hiding how sick he’d been feeling all this while. Adam felt a tidal wave of guilt at the mere thought, he wasn’t paying as much attention as he should have been and now… If something happened… It was going to be his fault.

Not to mention that whatever the withdrawal was doing to him, whatever he’d been attempting to repress, those pills had made it worse instead of abating it.   
  
Ronan’s hands were visibly shaking. Adam sat up a little straighter, sliding his arms around Ronan, whose spine pressed into Adam’s chest. He then pushed himself up on his heels with Ronan in tow and sucked in a breath as he gently opened Ronan's mouth and snuck a finger down his throat. About a moment later, Ronan pushed himself off of Adam and dry-heaved into the sink.

“Jesus,” Adam muttered, his heart stuttering like a faulty engine. “Are you alright?”

Ronan didn’t respond but began to stagger towards the door, one arm reaching out towards the knob, Adam immediately shot up and wrapped an arm around the other boy’s torso to keep him from stumbling. Ronan was too weak to fight him, but Adam could see it in his eyes how much he loathed this. There were a thousand angry things Adam wanted to shout, but instead he just steered Ronan to his bedroom and let him collapse into bed.

This was a conversation for when Ronan could move his limbs without shivering. Adam spent the next couple of hours by Ronan’s side, only getting up to drape a wet cloth over his forehead and pour him a jug of water. He forced some water down Ronan’s lips every now and then and checked his temperature just to make sure he wasn’t catching a fever.

He just sat there then in silence, watching Ronan as he slept. Adam couldn’t help but notice how unimpeachable he looked when he wasn’t trying to be an asshole, how the nerves under his skin relaxed, softening his face around the edges. The way the light bounced recklessly off his cheeks. How those impossibly long lashes of his fluttered as he blinked in his sleep. His breaths were coming and going ever-so-steadily, like it didn’t take exercise just to breathe.

It was like encountering an entirely different creature.

Adam studied the edges of his tattoo that leapt out from the collar of his t-shirt, he still couldn’t quite make out what it was. He thought he’d seen thorns and perhaps a feather of some sort? Maybe it was a visual representation of a dream.

Adam looked away, staring down at his own hands, fidgeting with them, pacing the length of his room. His heart was still beating like a small boat tossed by a vengeful sea. He should have kept a better eye on him. He shouldn’t have let this happen. What if things had gotten worse? What if he hadn’t arrived on time? What if they had to rush to the hospital in the middle of the night? How would he have explained himself, to Gansey, to Declan?

The parade of unpleasant thoughts were enough to turn his mood like milk gone sour. He wasn’t going to get any sleep, not if that meant he couldn’t keep one eye on Ronan at all times. Adam wanted so badly to understand, he wanted so badly to make things at least a tad better for Ronan. His parents’ deaths, his inclination for violence, the burden of his gift had all wrecked his being in fifty different ways, taken a toll on his mind. It wasn’t fair. But then again, when was the world ever fair?

Ronan deserved parents who were happy, healthy and alive just as much as Adam had deserved parents who had truly loved him. His mood plummeted even further as his thoughts wandered, making their ugly, habitual crawl down that all-too-familiar path stippled with his own blood.

Adam gave himself about five minutes to laminate in self-pity before he told himself to suck it up and released a withering breath, hoping to, at least temporarily, exterminate his demons.  
  
Chainsaw cawed viciously from her cage, sounding upset enough that it was as if she sensed her maker’s dismay. “You intelligent girl,” Adam said, as he tentatively opened the bird cage and fed her a few crackers. It took her some time to warm up to him, but she was allowing him to stroke her feathers and feeding right out of his palm a couple more hours into the night.   
  
By the time Ronan woke up, Adam had already made him some warm pasta, cleaned up the bathroom and disposed of all of Ronan’s pills. Ronan was up for long enough to make a quick trip to the bathroom, finish his pasta and pass out again. 

“Morning sunshine,” Adam mused the next afternoon, as he pressed the rim of his coffee mug to his mouth. “You slept all through the night.”  
  
He’d skipped class, texting his professor with a promise that he’d make up for whatever he missed and that it was a family emergency. He’d wanted to be there when Ronan woke up. 

Ronan muttered something incoherent groggily, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands and sitting up a little straighter. “I feel like shit,” he said.

“Yeah, you look it, too. Who told you to do something so fucking stupid?” when Ronan just blinked at him, Adam shook his head. “You’re not supposed to take these pills unless they’ve been prescribed to you!”

When Ronan didn’t answer, Adam put his mug on the desk besides Ronan’s bed and sat down in front of him, all that fury he’d been suppressing welling up inside him, staining his ribcage.  
  
“How long have you been feeling the effects of withdrawal?”

Ronan just shook his head like he wanted the earth to open up beneath him and swallow him whole just so that he could escape this conversation.   
  
_“How long?”_ Adam drawled out, his voice like the serrated edge of a sword.   
  
“Ever since I quit,” Ronan responded, dully honest.   
  
“What is it? Nausea, anxiety, sweating, seizures, hallucinations, vomiting or nightmares? Is it everything combined? What’s your worst symptoms? Ronan, if you keep ignoring the way your body is responding right now, you could end up in the hospital.” 

Ronan simply groaned and pushed himself out of bed. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Okay, tough guy. Yesterday suggests otherwise. If I hadn’t arrived in time - who knows if… Who knows… Jesus. You need to start taking care of yourself.”

“I was just trying to get rid of a headache, okay, man? I don’t remember what happened after that.” Adam turned and frowned. “Are you experiencing blackouts, too?”  
  
“I’m going for a shower,” Ronan announced, waving Adam off and making his way down the hall to the bathroom, but Adam was sick and tired of playing cat and mouse.   
  
He caught up with the other boy and pushed a hand into his chest, pinning him to the wall.

“Listen to me. I don’t care how invincible you think you are, but you’re still susceptible to human toils. Start taking care of yourself. I mean it. You come to me the next time you’re experiencing withdrawal symptoms, you let me help you, for the sake of revenge if nothing else. I’m on your side, Ronan. Don’t complicate things for yourself.”

Ronan’s eyes were blue fire. “You’re the fucking complication,” he snapped.

“You have a funny way of saying thank you. Anyone ever told you that?” Adam retorted.

“I didn’t need your help.” Ronan mumbled, shoving him back.

Adam choked back a dry laugh. “Yeah, you couldn’t even make it to the door knob by yourself.”

Suddenly, Ronan stared down at where Adam’s hand was pressed into his shirt, Adam dropped his hand, something aloof and strange pooling in his stomach. Embarrassment, most likely.   
  
“Lynch,” Adam then said. “I know letting yourself be vulnerable around somebody else is a mortifying thought, but trust me when I say being alone is worse. I don’t know if it’s that self-destructive streak in you, or if you’re just holding out to get to me, but stop torturing yourself.” It was a truly scary thought, imagining what Ronan had been through these past few days without anyone there to take care of him. The fact that he’d been sick and covering it up, the fact that he kept hiding himself away everytime he was feeling ill. The fact that he'd veiled it so well that Adam, who usually prided himself on his observational skills, hadn't noticed. 

It would’ve been impressive, if it wasn’t so stupid.

Ronan closed his eyes a moment, and then nodded, like he was tired of arguing. “And no more pills!” Adam called as he took a step back and let Ronan go. He then muttered a languid curse under his breath, flipped Adam off and slammed the bathroom door shut with enough force that it reverberated through Adam’s shoes.

* * *

“You’re still here,” Ronan said, without looking up at him.

It was already dusk by the time Adam caught up with him again. He was up on the roof, staring contemplatively at the city lights, the melting streets, the crescent moon dangling recklessly against a dark night sky peeling with shredded little clouds. Adam hadn’t ever been up on the roof before, and as far as his knowledge went, Ronan didn’t usually bother to come up here either, so it was surprising to see him there.

He was a stone statue in the dark, his black sweatpants and t-shirt merging him with the night’s shadows. Everything except for the glinting crucifix that hung around his neck. For some reason, Adam felt a guilty shudder run through him everytime he laid eyes on it. He wasn’t a religious person, the gods granted him no favors. The sight of the thing just reminded him of the church back home, crawling with devotees who sinned in quiet, joining their hands in false piety or for forgiveness.   
  
Adam thought he’d rather be an honest non-believer than pretend at being one.

The roof itself was simple, rather waning and time-worn. It was splattered in dust mites and bird crap and feathers and mottled in places with slimy little gardens of algae. Ronan was propped up on the ledge, his legs drawn up, his cheek resting on his left knee. There was a can of beer sitting next to him, long emptied, probably collecting cobwebs. A musty old barbecue was perched on the far end of the roof, probably beyond saving at this point.

It was a windy night, the trees rustled, the traffic below popped and fizzled. Adam felt raw out there in the dark, the air strangely warm as milk down the throat. It was hard to get a quiet like this back in his hometown, a quiet constantly interrupted by the dull trombone of city sounds. It stirred a soothing river in Adam’s bones.

“Are you surprised?” Adam asked, as he joined the other boy on the ledge, letting his long legs dangle below him. He’d had a strenuous day at college and he was just looking forward to grab dinner and go to bed, but not without checking up on Ronan first. He looked up at the sky instead of down at the ground where his feet hovered unsafely.

“No,” Ronan replied.

“How are you doing?”

“Blow me.”

“Maybe after you answer my question.”

Ronan stared at him, his eyes hard rocks of sapphire, amusement tugging at his lips. “It wasn’t my intention, you know. To pass out like a fucking idiot. I was just trying to get rid of a headache, I swear.” Before Adam could reply, his eyes narrowed. "I don't like being babied."

"I was trying to keep you alive."

"I wasn't dying, asshat."

"Could've fooled me." Adam replied, tentatively.   
  
Ronan's frown was baiting and complete, like a fish hook. It made Adam's stomach turn unpleasantly. There was something in the harsh curl of his lips and that graveyard stare of his that made people want to seek his approval. So anything even lightly reprimanding felt like a gut punch. 

"Someone really needs to teach you how to say thank you." Adam mused.

"How about I push you off this ledge in a demonstration of my gratitude?" Ronan snapped.

"You'd miss me."

"Would fucking not."

"You're such a heathen," Adam muttered.

"And you're a loser," Ronan drawled.

"Nightmare." Adam was trying to hide his smile. It felt so childish and yet so freeing, like working through their general dislike for each other. 

"Roadblock." Ronan scowled. 

They were quiet after that, and Ronan playfully kicked at Adam's foot with his own. Adam kicked back. 

“The withdrawal has been hard on you, though. Hasn’t it?” he had to ask. 

“It’s no tea party.”

“Why couldn’t you just tell me that in the first place?” Adam quizzed.

Ronan’s lower lip quirked. “I like watching you squirm.”

“Or you’re too much of an egotistical prick to admit you feel pain.”

Ronan went quiet at this. There was something grim in his eyes that reflected out into the wild kingdom of streetlights that stretched out in front of them, something inexorable as grief or time.

His shoulders had stilled, and Adam would’ve suspected if he was breathing if it wasn’t for how close they were seated next to one another. Their fingers were almost touching and their elbows brushed.

“Pain is useless,” Ronan said. “It doesn’t heal.”

“On the contrary,” Adam said. “It’s the only way to heal.”

Ronan was quiet again, he seemed to have trouble meeting Adam’s eyes. 

“I’m curious,” Adam said. “Do you hate me or just the idea of me?”

“I don’t,” his voice was caught in the wind, Adam almost didn’t recognize it.

“What?”

“Hate you,” Ronan clarified. “I don’t.”

“You sure act like you do,” Adam admitted.

“Sorry to burst your bubble but I act like I hate everyone,” he replied. “So don’t consider yourself special.”

“I think the keyword is ‘act’,” Adam muttered, as he gave Ronan’s shoulders a small nudge with his own. “You’re a good person trying very hard to come off as a bad one.”  
  
“And you?” Ronan arched an eyebrow. “Are you supposed to be a bad person pretending to be a good one?”

“What do you think?” Adam asked, despite the drop in his stomach.   
  
“I think you’re trying,” Ronan said, cryptically.

He was quiet again for awhile. “Do good people plot murders?”

“People pushed to the limit can become any kind of monster. The one important lesson you learn about the universe when you’re a psych student? Nothing and no-one is as black or white as they seem. We’re all just patches of greys.”

“How educational,” Ronan muttered.

“I’m trying to connect with you, asshole.”

“There you go again. Trying impossible things.”

“I don’t see anything as impossible.” Adam stated, firmly.

Once again, Ronan got this strange look in his eyes that Adam couldn’t explain. It was glossy and foreign, it made Adam’s stomach flip.

“That’s fucking shallow,” Ronan snapped.

“No, that’s the world ever since I met you.”

“Shitdamn, Parrish. Are you going to write me a sonnet next?”

Adam fumbled. “I… I mean, who's to draw the line of possibility when there are people like you out there rewriting the very meaning of the word, creating dreams.”

Ronan looked away from Adam, took a deep breath and stared back out at the city. “I could really use a drink right now,” he said, with a sigh.

“Maybe after you’re done recovering and you’ve got a better handle on your impulses.”

“You say that like you’re sure I’ll recover.”

“I’m sure.”

“Delusional,” Ronan diagnosed.

“Optimistic. It’s not the same thing.” Adam corrected.

“There’s some things you never recover from,” Ronan said softly.

“Yeah, but you can learn to channel that energy into other things.” Adam replied.  
  
"Like the future?" Ronan asked, although the accusation in his eyes suggested he was talking about Adam rather than himself.

"Yes," Adam said. "I have people I have to prove wrong. I have to prove something to myself, too. That's my motivation. Find yours."

"The future is too precarious to bank on," Ronan stated, once again, reminding Adam how smart he truly was. Maybe not in the general bookish way, but in a way that counted nonetheless. 

"So is everything. It isn't a reason not to at least try."

“Do you see that star?” Ronan suddenly asked, pointing skywards, at the brightest looking being.

“That’s actually Jupiter,” Adam explained.

“I know,” Ronan said. “You were a star and then you turned into a planet.”

Adam frowned at that, but he felt a warmth between his ribs like melting chocolate. He couldn’t quite figure out if that was meant to be a compliment, but Ronan didn’t linger on it or bother to explain, he just hopped off the ledge and turned on his heels.

“I’m going back inside,” he said. “And you don’t have to follow me. Go eat something and get some sleep. You look like you've been razed from fucking hell.”

Adam stayed sitting there for an indeterminable amount of time after that, breathing in the musky air, trying to make sense of something indecipherable, but when he went back in, he felt lighter than he had in days. Ronan was broken; Ronan was fixable; Ronan had a soul.

For the first time, a conversation with Ronan Lynch had actually gone somewhere other than backwards.

* * *

"I'm not talking to Gansey." Ronan's eyes were wide and horrified.   
  
"You have to talk to Gansey!" Adam groaned. "He won't stop texting and he won't stop calling. I'm afraid my phone's going to blow. He just wants to make things right." 

"Okay," Ronan said. "Are you going to be the one to tell him about our little development? Because it certainly isn't going to be me." 

"It's _your_ stupid idea!" Adam pointed out.

"Which is exactly fucking why I can't tell him about it. Not yet. His righteous little Gansey heart will give out and I won't be able to stand it."

"He deserves to know. You're his best friend, and I don't know if he's yours, but if friendship means anything to you, anything at all, you'll find a way around this." 

Ronan groaned and let out a languid sigh, but eventually, after a whole lot of balking and angry stomping, he complied.

He gave Gansey a call, there was a lot of shouting going both ways and Ronan cursed like the world was on fire around them, but by the time he cut the phone, he was looking smugly satisfied with the end result. 

"How'd it go?" Adam asked, witheringly.

"Oh, he'll be right over," Ronan said, with a smile that was nothing but teeth. "I'm going to go fuck around with Kavinsky. But you two crazy kids have fun."

"Wait, Ronan -" but before Adam could even finish he'd turned on his heel and stormed right out the door. Adam considered following, but he knew where Ronan was going to go, and he knew what he was up to. He hated the idea of having to leave him to Kavinsky's mercy, who Adam was sure would be delighted when he found Ronan to be free of his Adam-shaped shadow for once, but Adam was trying to trust Ronan. He knew this was not fun and games despite how Ronan made it sound. He would take what he needed from that canal rat and dump him on his ass.

It may be despicable, but it wasn't like a piece of garbage like Joseph Kavinsky deserved any better.

Gansey rang the door bell about twenty minutes after Ronan had taken his grand leave and Adam opened the door with a slow shake of his head. "He's not here," Gansey looked disappointed, but not surprised. "Predictable," he replied. "May I come in anyway or shall I go?"

Gansey's politeness would never stop disconcerting Adam but he shook his head once more and stepped aside to let the other boy in. Gansey smelled like fancy cologne and was dressed in a terribly yellow shirt that looked like it was harnessing energy from the sun, camel-colored khakis and top-siders. Looking as typical as typical could possibly get, but despite the wind-chafed quality of his shiny light hair that almost made Adam wonder what shampoo he used and his perfectly chiseled frame, the dark circles under his eyes looked more prominent than they'd been the last time they'd met, his expression was taut and he looked like some invisible force was holding him up on puppet strings to keep him standing upright. 

"Wow," Adam said, as he padded into the kitchen to get Gansey some water. "You okay?"

"Exquisite," Gansey replied, with a cheery infliction that Adam didn't believe. He returned and handed a glass of water to Gansey before shooting him a pointed look.

"Thank you," he said, accepting the glass and swallowing it in two quick gulps. "I've been... better," Gansey then admitted, running his thumb over his bottom lip.

"Did Ronan apologize? I didn't quite catch your conversation." Adam said, taking a seat besides the other boy. Gansey shrugged. "You didn't miss much. Trust me. Unless you're interested in interactive Latin curse words." Adam sighed and Gansey stared up at the banal ceilings, the dark floorboards, the lifelessness of this house Ronan lived in. "This is fatally disparate from his childhood home," Gansey muttered, wincing. 

"What was his childhood home like?" Adam asked, unable to curb his own curiosity. 

"A dream," Gansey replied, folding his hands over one of his knees. "Right next to acres of farmland. Golden pastures. Bright red barns. Color everywhere. Like an illustration from a children's book." 

"He picked this soulless lot on purpose." Adam guessed, and Gansey nodded, a crinkle rippling on his forehead, right in between his gallant eyebrows. "I don't understand, Adam. What he's thinking about doing... I don't see the need to point out to you all the reasons why it may be inadvisable." There it was again, that disappointment in him from someone who he respected. It burned several holes through his body. There was also a condescending edge to Gansey's voice that made Adam want to clock him, but he maintained his composure.

"He needs closure." He stated, simply.

Gansey ran an unhappy hand through his hair. "You cannot possibly allow him to do this. It is fraud." 

"I'm well aware."

Gansey's entire face fell. "Adam -" Adam cut him off, and it was a strangely satisfying thing, cutting somebody like Gansey off. By the utter discomfiture on his face, it was heavily evident that it wasn't often that people interrupted him while he was speaking. "You told me before that you weren't going to doubt my methods. Do you see a subtle change in Ronan's behavior, if we put aside everything else?"

"Yes, but -"

"Then I rest my case," Adam said. "A bad man will get what is coming to him and once Ronan has something to do other than seethe in silence as he plots his revenge, he will be able to think clearly, with less poisoning his veins. He'll finally be able to take strides forward. Maybe even put most of this behind him."

"That is presuming your subterfuge doesn't blow up in all of our faces."

Adam had to pause, if he'd heard correctly, Richard Gansey the Third had actually just added himself to this insane equation. " _Our_ faces?"

Gansey bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. "Ronan would follow me anywhere, he's willingly strode into a thousand death traps with me to aid me in looking for my king without even blinking. This may be absolutely outrageous and I won't enjoy a single millisecond of it, but I have to return the favor." 

"Jesus," Adam breathed. "You're actually on board?"

Gansey's expression was a dank cage. "Do I have a choice?" 

Adam broke into a small, guilty smile. "I believe neither one of us really do."

"Ronan Lynch," Gansey said, with a theatrical shake of his head. "Might be the death of us." 

"Oh," Adam replied. "I don't doubt that." 

When Gansey left, Adam was left feeling weirdly humbled. He hadn't gone into the job expecting to make a friend. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- thank you for reading and please leave me a comment on your way out!! :)  
> \- it literally takes me a lot of time to put these chapters up for you all, so please, please, just comment. the more you comment. the better. the longer the comment, the nicer. it really means so much to me. i read and re-read all of your lovely words whenever i'm feeling unsure of my abilities. so please, i'm sure it isn't too much to ask. <3


	9. The Definition of Not Leaving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've realized I'm eventually going to have to change the rating of this story to 'mature' just considering some of the stuff that'll take place in future chapters without going into too much detail. Anyway, there's an uncomfortable, upsetting and possibly even triggering scene in this chapter where Kavinsky forces something more than just a pill on Ronan. Honestly I might be exaggerating but I thought it's better to just let you guys know so that you see it coming. Anyway this chapter contains some unpleasant themes so... 
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNINGS: abuse, implied drug/alochol use, implied domestic violence, negative thoughts, dealings with and subtle descriptions of mental illness and fits of rage leading to blood.**
> 
> Damn, I hope I haven't scared you guys off the chapter. I promise it isn't as bad as it sounds. Please enjoy and don't hesitate to leave me a comment! I know the wait always sucks, but this long chapter should make up for it. :)

_"Doesn't everyone want to feel the night, the beloved body, compass, polestar, to hear the quiet breathing that says I am alive, that means also you are alive, because you hear me, you are here with me." - Louise Glück_

* * *

“Ma’am, I understand, but -” he groaned as the woman on the other end of the line rigidly continued her persistent babble, going on and on about rises in taxes and mandatory conduct.  
  
“Mortgages don’t pay themselves, kid,” she said, in that all-too-eager and deceivingly saccharine voice. “Do what you gotta do or I’m sorry, I’ll have no choice but to move you out by the end of the month.”

As the woman cut the line, Adam tossed his phone away from him in an impulsive fit of rage and winced as it bounced wretchedly off the wall. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and groaned loud enough that he felt it vibrate through his own windpipe, pacing back and forth across the length of the room as if his calves had been set on fire.

Someday, his father’s gestational gift to him was going to catch up with him and he was afraid he would break something other than an electronic piece of metal. He knew that if that day ever came, it would be the day he’d break something in himself, too.

Adam had lived at the college dorms for three whole years, and it was only recently that he’d finally managed to scrape up enough cash to rent a cheap studio apartment somewhere in the confined midst of the city.  

The home wasn’t everything he’d ever dreamed of his first pad in the big city to look like, but it was doable. Leagues better than the claustrophobic little dorm he’d been cramped up in for the better part of his education.

Adam had tolerated the dorms for long enough, he’d endured his sloppy, careless roommates, the incessant smell of chips, pot and beer wafting from every one of the wafer-thin walls, somehow he’d even managed to study through the skull-pounding music that reverberated through their stereo systems on a regular basis but he _refused_ to go back. He just couldn’t.

When he was finished up with Ronan, he had to return to his apartment. He didn’t want to have to move back into a rowdy student dorm, but he was seven weeks late on his rent and his landlord’s patience was withering. She demanded he pay her within the next three days or she was evicting him and letting some new tenant set up shop.

Ever since Adam had quit his old jobs, he’d been even more tight on money than usual. Despite the full scholarship, there were still extraneous expenses that came with college and upkeep in this concrete jungle.

This job was an ample source of income, but sober companions weren’t usually paid until the end of their terms, and Adam couldn’t keep Amber waiting. He would have to start requesting installments from Declan if he was going to be running the risk of becoming homeless in a matter of days.

“Trouble in paradise?” came Ronan’s voice from somewhere behind him. Adam whirled around.

Ronan arched an eyebrow at him before sauntering into his room and tossing a thick wad of cash at his chest. Adam caught it out of reflex, but only barely. He stared down at the money like he’d just been tossed a rifle, his eyes widened as he subtly counted it. It was more than enough for him to pay his rent, it was more than enough for him to be able to pay his rent for months to come.

“This…” the words were slippery as soap in his mouth. “This is five thousand dollars.”

Ronan merely shot him a bored look. “Congratulations. You can count.”

“What is this?” Adam drawled, still not sure of the weight of the wad in his fragile hands.

Now Ronan tilted his head to the side. “In addition to stupidity, do you have some sort of a short-term memory loss thing going on?”

Adam let out a huff of breath and scowled. “I don’t want your charity.” He snapped, before tossing the wad back at Ronan, who caught it in one hand and only shook his head, like Adam was testing his patience.

Something dark and ruddy welled up inside him like a splurging eddy of indignation. Fires of shame ricocheted off his ribs like softballs. When he looked up at Ronan again, his fists were balled to either side of him. _Gulp it down,_ a warning voice in his head prescribed. Ronan seemed to notice by the telltale bemusement on his face, but he didn’t seem to care.

“Consider it an advance payment,” Ronan snapped, before tossing the wad back at him again. Adam dove to grab it, more out of respect for the precious amount of money than in a notion of blind acceptance.

When Adam just shot him a glower equivalent to the wrath of a dozen heavily pizzed off Aztec gods, Ronan winced and took a single step back. If Adam’s emotions hadn’t been in such a clenched frenzy, perhaps he would’ve been a little defiantly smug about the fact that he’d somehow managed to unnerve fighter-of-men Ronan Lynch.

“Okay, save your righteous fury for someone who cares and just take the money.” Ronan mumbled, rubbing the back of his head.

Adam frowned. “How did you get your hands on so much fluid cash?”

"I robbed the Central bank of Russia. How do you think, weirdo?" Ronan’s lips tugged up in a condescending smile. “I’m rich as shit,” he said it like it wasn’t obvious by the pure ignorance in that moronic grin of his. “I could go out right now and buy like, four yachts if I fucking wanted.”

“I… I still can’t take this,” Adam argued, he felt like it was burning his hands. He felt undeserving of it somehow. Most of all, he felt like a beggar who was being fed scraps. Pathetic and lowly. Shame and disgust quarrelled with each other in the pit of Adam’s stomach, leaving a stale, metallic taste in his mouth.

Ronan’s eyes shot skyward as he pinned his hands together behind the back of his head and sighed. “Look, dumbass. If it makes you feel any better, my stash is my brother’s stash. The money’s fair and square. You’ve earned even more than this for three weeks of babysitting me. Grow a set of balls and persuade my dick brother to set you up for installments or some shit.”

Adam considered this. He wasn’t wrong. Predictably, Ronan hadn’t bothered to earn a single dime for himself and since half of his own ration was tucked away into a savings account Declan had started in his name, Ronan was leeching off of Declan’s dough. This money was exactly what he needed to pay off his due rent and by extension shut Amber up, plus it would give him enough time to work up the nerve to talk Declan into paying him sooner.

Realization settled inside his chest like warm spring rain and it was so jarring that he looked up at Ronan right then. Ronan returned his hooded stare right back at him, his features washed out in the stray light splattering in from the wide open windows behind him.  
  
Was Ronan actually trying to do something nice for him? In his strange, topsy-turvey brain was this meant to be a kindness, a gesture of some sort? It seemed to him like Ronan had just been helpful and tried to conceal it with hefty amounts of sarcasm and heedlessness. It was like playing hide-and-seek, easy to spot as long as you knew where to look. Ronan’s kindnesses hardly ever looked like kindnesses, but the genuinity behind them was still there all the same.

“Were you eavesdropping on my conversation?” Adam then asked slowly, drawing his eyebrows together and squinting at the other boy.

“It’s only fair,” Ronan replied, already turning away like whatever had been keeping him glued to Adam’s doorstep had run its course. “You eavesdrop on my life.”

“Hey,” Adam called, setting the money carefully aside over his drawer and tailing after the other boy. He caught up to him in the hallway and squeezed Ronan’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Like I said,” Ronan murmured. “Not my money.”

Adam felt a little off-kilter as he balanced on the balls of his feet to keep from running nose-first into Ronan’s face in his hurry. Ronan was faster and dug his cold fingers into Adam’s collar, pushing him back a little before letting go only to pinch the centre of Adam’s collarbone with his thumb and index finger. “Don’t push your luck, Parrish.”

“You did a nice thing and I want to acknowledge it. See, that’s how friendships function. Not that _you’d_ know anything about it.”

“Don’t even want to.”

“I thought you had nothing left to give.”

“I don’t,” Ronan’s voice was bitter and indignant, but Adam couldn’t help igniting him. It was highly entertaining and deeply satisfying, only to see that frustrated crease in between his eyebrows or the pursed half of his bottom lip.

“I think we both have very different definitions of nothing.”

“Shut up.”

* * *

“So you’re striding right back to the devil’s trap?”

“You’re free to stay the fuck out of my way.” Ronan replied tersely, as he yanked his keys off the table and pulled his jacket on. When Adam shot him a concerned look, he groaned. “Look. It’ll be fine. Stay home. Read some lullabies. Solve some equations. Set yourself on fire. I don’t care. You just do your end of the job and leave me to handle mine.”

“My job’s safer.” Adam pointed out.

Ronan arched an eyebrow at that. “ _Your_ job is to cook up a fucked up bunch of crimes.”

“Yeah and _you’re_ spending more time with that sleazy piece of shit who thinks drugging people out of their minds is some type of a bonding exercise.”

Ronan trudged over to where Adam was sprawled out on the couch with a fat book in his lap and braced his arms on either the side of the armrest, barricading Adam with his body. “I can handle Kavinsky fuckface, okay?” he said, his uncensored blue eyes boring into Adam’s.

“I’m sure you think you can handle nuclear devastation. Ronan, your withdrawal symptoms could make you way more susceptible to any form of substance abuse right now.”

“I have the withdrawal at bay.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Ronan shrugged. “Not my problem.” He said, shooting Adam yet another ashen look before pushing off and stomping away. Adam didn’t hesitate, he practically shot off the sofa in a hurry to follow him.

Ronan sneered when he turned to find Adam at his heels. “I thought I told you to stay where you are,” he said.

“I didn’t listen.” Adam noted, like it wasn’t obvious. “If you think I’m leaving you alone to have a play date with the Grinch who stole Christmas then you're out of your mind.”

“I would have thought _I_ was the Grinch.” Ronan murmured, almost offended.

“You’re the lesser of two evils.” Adam replied.

Ronan rolled his eyes and kept going. Adam turned around and made sure to lock the front door before hurrying on after him. “You know, you should add ‘constant thorn in everyone’s side’ onto your resume.” Ronan commented as he slipped into his charred beast of a car.

“And you should add ‘ungrateful prick’ to yours.” Adam retorted, blandly, shifting into the passenger seat.

Ronan turned up the music as soon as he’d gotten the ignition running and Adam stared out the windows, watching the night turn into a specter of fluttering colors, traffic lights and sporadic stars. There was a knot in his stomach at the mere thought of having to share breathing space with that awful excuse for a human being again, but after Ronan’s little incident on the bathroom floor the other day, there wasn’t a chance in hell he was risking leaving Ronan alone to the mercy of Kavinsky’s questionable ethics and eager arms. Did he even understand what ethics meant? Adam was willing to bet not.

Ronan skidded the car to a grounding halt in yet another nerve-ending of nowhere and killed the radio. There was a part of Adam that wondered how Kavinsky found these places, how he seduced the night and found its sweet spots, its giveaways.

It was a chilly evening, and in Adam’s hurry to chase after Ronan, he’d forgotten to pull his jacket on. He took a deep breath and ran his hands up and down his arms before pressing his palm up against the cold glass of the car window. It felt like touching an icecap.

Something like fog was rising up from the dark, winding dirt roads on their right and Adam could hear the dull trombone of a bass, roaring up against the cricket-silence of the night like a heartbeat.

“Fog machines?” Adam asked, in disbelief.

“Someone’s a drama queen,” Ronan scoffed, before leaning halfway out of his seat and shuffling around in the backseat for something. Adam frowned. “What are you doing?” Ronan didn’t respond to him, but he’d procured a black hoodie by the time he pulled himself back into the seat. He thrust it into Adam’s hands.

When Adam just stared at him with scepticism, Ronan shook his head like Adam was the single dumbest person he’d ever met in his life. “If you catch a fucking cold, you’re going to get me sick too since we’re pulling this conjoined twins act. So you better put that shit on and spare us both the trouble.”

Once again, Adam was rendered speechless. The hostile Ronan who insulted his every move and shot him scowls equivalent to stab wounds he could handle, but he wasn’t quite sure what to do with these nice little gestures. Especially when he could swear that the way Ronan’s eyes slid up him sometimes made him feel like he was being dunked headfirst underwater. He was surprised Ronan even noticed at all, or perhaps his discomfort actually just grated on his nerves. It was hard to tell.

Would he ever figure this jigsaw puzzle of a boy out? First the money and now this. It was like Ronan Lynch was steadily becoming a whole new person, the person Adam had known had existed all along, perhaps even before Ronan had known it himself.

Adam had to push the heel of his thumb into his mouth to veil his smile. He then put Ronan’s hoodie on without hesitation. Ronan just flicked him a quick once-over, nodded like he was satisfied with what he saw and pulled himself out of the car.

The sweater was only slightly bigger for him and the sleeves fell all the way down to his fingertips but it was warm and it smelt like woodsmoke and Ronan’s cologne.

As he followed Ronan up the dirt road, he gave him a quick grateful nod, Adam was afraid that if he kept making a big deal out of every little act of kindness that Ronan showed him, he would dissuade the other boy into stopping out of sheer folly or pride.

“You know the drill. Hang back,” Ronan advised. “Let me do the talking.”

“I didn’t drop my homework and follow you out into the lion’s den in the dark of the night just to hang back.” Adam responded tightly. The wind had picked up some pace and his teeth rattled in his mouth like a skeleton dance.

“He’ll just try to rile you,” Ronan muttered, with an impatient lour.

“I don’t know about that,” Adam replied, with a smug grin. “I think I’m getting really good at dealing with hostiles.”

Ronan just shoved his hands into his pockets and scoffed. “Loudmouth,”

“At least I don’t broadcast my feelings in nothing but a complicated series of grunts. You should have your own language. What’s the word for ‘brooding’ in Latin?”  

 _“Ede Faecam,”_ Ronan replied easily, and Adam bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m pretty sure that was a curse word.”

As they kept going, the music began to rise like a flooding wave alongside Adam’s anxiety.

“Are you sure you’re feeling up to this?” he asked, because he wasn’t sure he was feeling up to it himself. Ronan just turned and shot Adam a long, intense stare. In the chocolatey dark of the blotted moonlight and the lasers being projected from the buoyant distance, Adam was impressed by the bladed limn in Ronan’s fierce eyes.

Ronan then raised a hand and ran his fingers through Adam’s hair, Adam stared unmoving, frozen in spot by his own curiosity. “Did you just fix my hair?”

Ronan shrugged. “Yeah, you’re welcome, too. You looked like a bedraggled weasel.” Then he turned and kept going, Adam just stood there for a moment, he could still feel Ronan’s grip in his hair as he coerced himself to snap out of it and padded on after him.

Kavinsky’s substance party was a kingdom of wild, dead-eyed animals who followed no law of nature except for the brain-damaging thirst for that intoxicating, mind-numbing high they all so fundamentally craved like sharks keen on blood. They had to push past throngs of capering bodies milling around a huge, sultry bonfire that bloomed in the midst of the road like a flickering flower. People bustled everywhere, smoking up and drinking down, some of them wielding sparklers and rockets.

Firecrackers sounded out like pulsating gunshots, bleeding through the harsh fabric of the cacophonous music.

Adam spotted Kavinsky almost immediately. The boy was pretty much a neon billboard in the midst of the colorful sea of people with his chalkboard white muscle tee and the futile sheen of his tinted sunglasses. By his side sat a girl who looked drugged out of her senses, biting a hickey into his neck. The smile that split his face when he caught sight of Ronan was abrasive and unfairly white for someone who smoked and drank as much as Kavinsky did. Adam almost felt the need to take a gold marker and color in several of his teeth.

He hopped off the hood of his Mitsubishi, leaving the poor girl to fend for herself, and disappeared into the crowd, only to reemerge moments later like a vicious fox from behind a thicket of trees. “Party crashers,” he drawled, his voice ringing with amusement. “Maybe I skipped the invite. What,” he turned his head to sneer at Ronan. “Is play time over already?”

“I’ll shoot you an email first next time.” Ronan replied. Kavinsky threw his head back at this and cackled, but when he met Ronan’s gaze again, the smile had simmered off his face to be replaced by a burning scowl. “Don’t kill my vibe now, Bitch. Oops,” he pressed two fingers into his skull like miming a gun and widened his eyes. “I meant _Lynch_.”

Adam’s own fingers were itching to deck this guy and string him up with his own innards. He didn’t know if Kavinsky was fearless or just plain suicidal.

Adam couldn’t seem to figure out why he took so much mirth in rattling Ronan until he implored like the wrong wire triggered in a bomb; other than the obvious, and that was too sickening of a thought for Adam to consider without wanting to throw up into his own hands.

Ronan’s expression was unnervingly calm. “It’s not like I can book an appointment.”

Adam mentally scoffed, despite the callous tone of Kavinsky’s voice, Adam was almost certain that he was simply itching for Ronan to give him the time of day.

“Fine, but you have to keep your errand boy on his leash.” Kavinsky snapped, barely sparing Adam a glance.

“Fuck you,” Adam said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

To Adam’s utter surprise and disappointment, Ronan leaned over to speak into his ear over the gurgling music. Perhaps just to avoid Kavinsky catching on, who was still staring smotheringly at both of them like he was fantasizing their heads on pikes. “I’ll make it quick,” he said.

“No,” Adam replied, firmly.

“Do you want to get this over with or not, Parrish?”

“Not like this. I told you, I won’t leave you alone with him.”

“I don’t need your fucking protection.”

“No, but think of me as the conscience you clearly don’t have. Keeping you from spilling your guts out all over the floor.” Adam said, tersely.

Ronan sighed audibly and gripped the back of Adam’s neck, yanking his head closer to further lean into him. Ronan’s warm breath trickled over Adam’s earlobe as he spoke. “Okay G.I Joe, just let Kavinsky think you’re less stubborn than you actually are.” Adam understood immediately what he meant as he let go. Adam was to stay close by and melt into the crowds so that Kavinsky thought that he and Ronan were alone.

He nodded and took a resigned step back, as if to cave in. Kavinsky pulled his sunglasses over his head and his dark eyes sparkled with ditzy triumph as he shot Adam a baleful snarl and pulled a willing Ronan back into the rabble, away from Adam.

He loathed this, but at least Ronan was letting him keep an eye on them without putting up a fight. That was something. Adam kept a rapt watch on the back of Ronan’s head, the inky beginnings of his tattoo a worthy giveaway. He was convinced at this point that Joseph Kavinsky had some personality disorder or the other. Walking around talking like a character from Pulp Fiction, his narcissism and menace coalesced into one to create the Ultimate Asshole.

He'd probably burst out of the womb with tattoos and a cigarette hanging from his dirty mouth.

As Adam steadily snaked his way through the mob, keeping a calculated distance from the two boys and ducking his head every now and then to avoid being nicked with a beer bottle, his heart was a tremor in his chest.

It was the animal looks on everybody’s faces, that bordering on polydipsia need for violence, for bloodshed, for a hypnotizing escape that made every bone in his body recoil as if someone had snuck a fist in and rearranged all his vital organs.

Somehow, it resurfaced a memory he’d repressed so hard he’d half-convinced himself that he’d imagined the whole thing, but now the painful realization of the reality of it overtook him like an all-consuming fire, left his skin ringing, his head a rainfall of ashes.

Adam had been six years old when his father had first offered him a swing of his own rancid liquor. Adam had sat there on a big threadbare sofa that was perched directly opposite to a tiny television, one his father was glued to on most days. He could smell his mother’s cooking, she wasn’t the best cook and her food was often burnt, but Adam had adhered to the smell of charred rice to the point where it was almost comforting.

Despite the buzzing drone of the television, Adam could hear voices floating in from outside. They lived in the riff-raff of town, with the drug addicts and the thieves, the freeloaders and the malefactors. The sounds he was most accustomed to included gun shots, couples shouting at each other at seemingly freight train frequencies, angry dogs barking and police sirens going off like warning bells.

Adam had been fiddling around with his toy car, the model and the color of which he couldn’t remember, when his father, who’d crashed down besides him had practically forced the bottle into his tiny hands, causing him to drop the toy. “Drink,” he ordered. When Adam had just stared at the liquid, Robert had struck him at the back of his head. “I said _drink_ , boy. Don’t puss out on me now.”

At that point, the sour look in his father’s eyes was a lot more terrifying than the prospect of a badly tasting drink, so he’d wrapped his lips around the mouth of the bottle and chugged languid chunks of it down a little too quickly, which in turn had him choking on the burning liquid and coughing until his lungs stopped rattling.

“Sweetie,” his mother’s voice was tense but her expression had been impassive. Adam’s violent coughing had caused her to abandon her regular post. “He’s just a boy.”

“He’ll be a man soon.” Robert gruffed.

Adam’s entire throat had felt like it’d been brimmed with cement, his esophagus stinging like a bursting thorn, his system clearly rejecting the alcohol. That nauseous feeling only dissipated once Adam had puked all the contents of his stomach out onto the prickly carpet.

His father had only laughed witheringly as his mother hurried to clean him up and chide him for not having better control over his body. "That was my good carpet," his mother wailed. “A waste of sperm, if you ask me,” Robert had snapped, not that Adam had understood what he’d meant back then. Then he'd emptied the bottle and whirled it at Adam's head, resulting in blood and a couple stitches. He’d almost killed himself in hopes to make his father happy and all he’d gotten for it was a sling of vile curses and insults, aimed wherever it would hurt the very most.

“Watch yourself, man!” someone yelled, and Adam flinched hard as he was pulled back to reality. He’d spaced out right in the midst of a group of wasted partygoers attempting to set off another firecracker. Adam pushed forward, the ragged seams of the memory melting back into the abyss of his mind. He blinked into the bright whirling night and took a few calming breaths.

He hated being pushed up against so many people. He hated being surrounded by all these drunken idiots with no sense of ambition or verity whatsoever. He hated the noxious smell of liquor and cigarette smoke infiltrating all his senses.

When Adam caught sight of the very reason he was here in the first place however, all extraneous thoughts dispersed. Kavinsky had Ronan pushed up against the wall of the abandoned gas station where the party was taking place. They were way out of his earshot, not that it mattered with the throbbing pulse of the flittering baritone, but he could tell there was a struggle.

Adam pushed past several floundering revelers to get closer to them and poised himself behind a pillar in the wall. Kavinsky and Ronan stood inches away from a conked out vending machine, Kavinsky had one hand braced by the side of Ronan’s head, obstructing Adam’s view of Ronan’s face, but Adam could gauge by the rolling of Ronan’s shoulders, the tightness of Kavinsky’s jaw and the vigorous shaking of his head that they were arguing about something possibly very loudly.

Adam’s stomach leapt and he warred with himself, trying to decide on whether or not to interfere despite Ronan’s earlier warning to be discreet.

Kavinsky pretty much made the decision for him when he tilted his head sideways and began to lean into Ronan as if to kiss him. “Get the fuck off him!” Adam yelled, interjecting right in time to see the green glint of the tiny glowing pill that rested on Kavinsky’s bared tongue. Ronan’s eyes had widened in alarm and he shoved at Kavinsky so hard that the other boy stumbled backwards and would’ve tripped onto his ass if he hadn’t grabbed the pillar for support.

“Motherfucker,” Ronan’s anger was such a slippery, unrelenting thing that Adam had to step in between him and Kavinsky to keep Ronan from wringing his neck.

“Leave him,” Adam urged. “Let’s just get out of here.”

Kavinsky was laughing his terrible, mirthless laugh. “And it’s Sargent Sobriety to the rescue!” he grinned, with an exaggerated hand gesture. Alarm was a car crash inside Adam. “You  _told_ him?” he gaped. Ronan’s eyes flickered to Adam’s and a little bit of his rage dispersed. “No,” he replied. Adam frowned. “Then how did he -”

Kavinsky’s face was a disproportioned frame, a burnt photograph. “He didn’t have to, I’ve got a sixth sense about these things, man!” he slurred. “Well, that and he thinks he dreamt you.”

_“What?”_

Ronan lunged for Kavinsky again, but this time, Adam grabbed ahold of both his arms and restrained him. “He’s not worth it, Ronan,” he insisted. “You’re giving him just what he wants.”

“No, he was going to, until _you_ showed up!” Kavinsky sneered, his voice smooth and yet distasteful, like cough syrup.

“You’re a sick bastard, you know that?” Adam replied. “Come on,” he muttered, softer now, at Ronan’s ear, his hands still locked around his wrists. “Let’s go.”

There was sawdust and dynamite in Ronan’s brutish gaze and his own fingers dug into the material of Adam’s sweater so hard that his knuckles had become bloodlessly pale. Adam allowed him the anchor. He needed something to grab onto now. Something for support.

Whatever Kavinsky had said and whatever he’d attempted to do had clearly splintered something in Ronan. The other boy took a deep breath and let it out, the muscles under his cheek working into a clench as he nodded. “Let’s fucking go.”

“You’ll be back!” Kavinsky shouted, fiendishly at their retreating backs. “You hear me, you fuckweasels? I know what he is! I know what he wants! He’s deluding himself!” Adam only pulled up his middle finger as he continued to lead Ronan away. “You can’t change what you fucking are, you -” the bass drowned his voice out, and for once Adam was glad for the music’s pounding, devouring quality.

Once they made it back into the car, they just sat there in silence. Neither boy speaking a word. Breathing in quiet tandem to the dull midnight haze.

Adam thought it a bit of a jarring transition to go from that ear-splitting music to this uneasy silence pooling all around him. He shot Ronan a sideways glance. Ronan looked ready to set himself on fire if given half the chance, his dark brows furrowed, his lips slightly parted in dismay or disbelief. He was breathing harder than Adam was, as if there were something stuck in his windpipe. Ronan shoved his hands into his jacket pockets, an exercise in futility, considering Adam had already noticed how hard they were shaking.

“Jesus shit Mary fuck,” Ronan started. “I’m sorry you had to fucking witness that.”

“Don’t be,” Adam said, with a sigh. “It wasn’t… You didn’t see it coming. Neither of us did.”

“I want to break him in five hundred different places,” it was more a grinding of teeth than actual words. Adam pressed a thumb into his eye. “Ronan,” he said. “What did Kavinsky say to you?”

“Nothing.”

Adam couldn’t contain his scoff. “Yeah. It really looked like nothing.” He shook his head and then turned to face the other boy. “I’ve never seen you that angry before. It was like you’d been replaced with something else.”

Adam knew that look at the back of his hand. He’d learnt to instinctively put himself as far away as he physically could from anything that wore that look and yet here he was today, breaking yet another one of his rules for Ronan’s sake.

He would dwell on what that meant later. Right now, he had to make sure Ronan was okay.

Adam wasn’t sure if forcing himself upon Ronan was what Kavinsky had actually been attempting to do, but it wasn’t a far off assumption from the looks of that pill that had sat on his tongue.

“I’m angry all the time,” Ronan pointed out.

“Not like this.”

“It’s always like this.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Adam snapped, bitterly. “Tell me the truth.”

“The truth isn’t always what you want to hear, Parrish.”

“Never is, in my experience.” Adam replied, impatiently. “I thought you didn’t lie.”

“I don’t.”

“Then _tell_ me.”

“Talking about it makes me want to burn this car down with both of us in it.”

“Do it then,” Adam challenged. “Burn this car down with both of us in it.”

Ronan’s glare gave way to a slight hint of amusement. “You have some kind of death wish, don’t you, Ponyboy?”

Adam shrugged. “Maybe I’m picking up all of your bad habits.”

This earned him a dry chuckle, then Ronan took another deep breath and let it out, eyes settling on the coiling roads in front of them. The moon was a frosty blur in the darkened pastiche of the night. The trees formed shapeless backdrops, a shadow world of their very own. He felt safer for once, tucked into this car than he did out in the capricious night.

“He thinks just because we can do the same things he knows me.”

“Was he trying to hurt you?”

Ronan’s eyes were hard sheens of ice. “No.”

"But he -"

"He just wanted me to take the pill." 

"You say that like it makes it any better."

Ronan didn't look like he wanted to continue this discussion. More like he wanted to forget it ever happened, possibly erase it with pure denial. Adam didn’t want to interrogate him any further, he could always ask again when Ronan was feeling more up to it. Right now, there was something else he had to get out. “We don’t need him, okay?” he said, gently. “You’re not coming back. Ever.”

To Adam’s surprise, Ronan said nothing. He just turned the key in the ignition and sped them off into the theatre-black.

Later that night, Adam knocked on Ronan’s room to check on him, only to find him sitting up in his bed, listlessly staring at the wall in the darkness.

“Can’t sleep?” Ronan didn’t respond but Adam caught his eyes blink. “Me neither.”

Sometimes, Ronan could sit so still it worried Adam. It reminded him so much of his mother, how sometimes she’d just shut down completely, as if she could automatically render herself catatonic by the flip of a switch. His mother’s indifference had always somehow hurt more than his father’s physical blows.

His father had left several indents on him, each one bruised and rotten as a ripe fruit, but his mother had left psychological scars. Which were bigger somehow. Roiling empty seas. Multiple drops in the temperature. A breath perpetually held.

Sometimes when his own eyes reflected her lifelessness, alarm would pound in his heart like an axe. Sometimes he’d worried his mother was just born without a soul. Except he knew better now. His mother had been a person once, someone who laughed and cried and lived.

His earliest memories of her were in fact pleasant ones. Her baby bird bright eyes stilling on his as she ran her delicate fingers through Adam’s hair and read him bedtime stories. Her laugh when he’d say something silly. The way she’d collapsed to the floor in a crumpled mess, begging her husband to just _stop_ the first time she’d caught him hitting their only son.

She’d been strong, but she’d gotten tired of being strong.

Then… Then it was like something inside her had just given way and she’d absorbed all the pain until there was none left to feel. She’d become this whole different person. Existent but not alive. Smiling, occasionally, but vacant. Reactionless. Her words dried out from being repeated so many times. It was like she’d trained herself into becoming this marionette with merely a limited set of actions and behaviors. It was like her heart had shut down, despite it still beating.

Could you live with a dead heart? It was a question Adam had asked himself everyday since.

Perhaps if you swam around in misery long enough, you eventually learnt to breathe within it.

Adam didn’t wish that on Ronan. He didn’t wish that on anyone. So he knocked once again, softly, adamant to get a reaction. “Can I come in?” he asked, carefully.

Ronan said nothing, but Adam took his lack of a reaction as an invitation and slipped in anyway, closing the door behind him to block out the light protruding in from the hallway. He sat down next to Ronan on the bed.

He kept a sensible distance between them, but remained close enough so that Ronan would know that he was here. If he wanted to talk, even if he didn’t want to talk.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” Adam explained aloud. “We can just stay here wordlessly and watch the wall together.”

Ronan spared him the barest glance through the corner of his eye before looking away again, the street lights dripping in from the windows outside enough to rim his silhouette in a light glowy tinge. The blue of his eyes pierced even the dark and Adam had to reign himself not to get caught in them. They sat like that in pin drop silence for over an hour, and eventually, Adam’s eyes began to feel heavy.

As if on cue, like Ronan was infected by Adam’s dreariness, the other boy leaned ever-so-slowly back into the bed, resting his head on the pillow and one hand over his stomach.

Adam wondered for awhile whether he should get up and go back to his own bed.

For some reason, after the evening they’d had, it didn’t feel right to leave Ronan like this so he decided to stay. Ronan could kick him out if he wanted but after offering his company, the right thing to do was to remain. There was enough space on the bed that Adam could stretch out his long legs and lie down besides Ronan.

The wall staring session could have turned into a ceiling staring session, but Ronan had inclined his neck to look at Adam, and despite the tingling drumming in Adam’s chest and the sleep poking at the tips of his eyelids, he was looking back.

They weren’t close enough to touch, but Adam could feel Ronan’s warm breath against his face as he inhaled and exhaled, it left a strange heat curling in Adam’s stomach. Ronan’s face was expressionless, but there was something in his eyes Adam couldn’t quite place. Something inexplicably heavy that made Adam feel like he was being buried alive by just the weight of it. 

Adam’s eyes fell to Ronan’s collarbone and then the sides of his neck, half-hidden in mounds of pillow. He wanted to reach out and touch the murky beginnings of his tattoo. As if feeling the shape of it might help him determine what it was. Might help him determine what _he_ was. 

It was only when Ronan sucked in a sharp breath and shivered a little that Adam realized he’d actually subconsciously reached out. His fingers hovered awkwardly about half an inch away from the curve of Ronan’s neck. _What am I doing -_

He balled his fingers into a fist and retracted his hand before he could actually touch the other boy. Warm and palpable as his skin looked, it was weird. It was crossing a line. It was stars stirring behind his ribs. Ronan was still looking at him.  
  
“Sorry,” Adam breathed.

Ronan said nothing. It was almost as if he wasn’t registering anything that was happening. He was still watching Adam but his watery blue eyes were dazed. So when Adam reached out to touch him again, it was more out of a budding curiosity as to whether he’d garner a reaction or not than anything else. He wanted Ronan to say something. He wanted him to give ground.

Maybe even reassure him that all this effort and time that Adam was putting into his cause would regale him with a result for _once_.

Adam ran his thin bony fingers over the side of Ronan’s face, the touch was feather-light and barely there, in case he was making him uncomfortable. His fingertips were cold against Ronan’s warm skin, or perhaps it was the other way around. He wasn’t sure.

To Adam’s surprise, all Ronan did was close his eyes to the touch, his face almost leaning into the palm of Adam’s hand as he slightly shifted his chin. Adam, encouraged, continued to run weightless fingers up Ronan’s face, feeling the sharp ridges of his cheekbones, the soft dip near his eye and the thicker expanse of his eyebrow before reaching lower to trace the fringes of his tattoo, almost psychedelic in this light.

“What is it supposed to be?” he mumbled, more to himself than to Ronan, who characteristically, didn’t bother curbing his curiosity. When he took his hand away again, his skin speckled like he’d come away with dust, like something in his veins was roaring to life.

The feeling was so unsettling, so ineffable, that Adam was left with a glacial mound of fresh fear crusting over his heart.

Ronan’s eyelashes fluttered in the oceanic dark, his gaze a ghosting. Why wasn’t he saying anything? Except… Maybe he was saying something. Maybe this was Ronan’s way of screaming, because here he was, stretched out wide as a river for Adam to drink out of. Vulnerable and forbearing for probably the first time in a long time. Was this Ronan’s way of giving him an inch? Was it a silent white flag?

Adam was choosing to stay and Ronan was letting him without further hesitance. 

Adam’s chest was a labile mix of conflicting emotions. It was like someone had spun a wheel that kept on spinning and he wasn’t sure what feeling the arrow would fall on. He had never done this with anyone, never been so close that he could count the other person’s breaths if he wanted. Even with Blue in the past, on the rare occasions that she’d actually been willing to kiss him, it’d been quick and sloppy and a little uncomfortable.

It wasn’t that Blue was a bad kisser, but he could just tell that her heart was never into it. They’d kissed because everyone else was kissing. They’d kissed because they’d figured that’s what they were supposed to do, like actors following a script. They hadn’t kissed because every atom in their bodies were telling them to kiss or whatever the hell love was actually supposed to feel like.

Adam had been too busy hoping he didn’t accidently bite her or choke her with his tongue to linger on the feel of it. By the time they’d pulled away from each other, shy and a bit out of breath, they’d both just been relieved it was over with. Something to tick off the to-do list.

Adam didn’t know why he was thinking about kissing right now.

They were laying there face-to-face and it felt intimate in a way nothing in his life had ever been. Space - space and distance was all Adam had known. Making sure he wasn't taking up too much of it, making sure he was giving other's enough of it and vice versa. Touch was as foreign a concept to him as a song, one which's lyrics he'd heard of but never bothered to memorize.

Being too close to somebody else’s body, listening to someone else breathe, it was usually nothing but repulsive to him because it reminded him so much of his father’s big, rough hands around his throat or a fist slamming into his gut. His unbearable snoring at night. Something about the close proximity gave him chills like spiders creeping up his spine. 

Adam remembered how when he was a kid, he’d see fight scenes in movies and wonder if the two opposing parties were going to punch, shoot or just drop their enmity and kiss. He’d always thought about how it was cruelly ironic that both love and hate were so often intertwined. You got into people’s spaces for primarily two reasons, you either wanted to kill them or kiss them.

Laying down here now in this noiseless bedroom in this huge empty house with a boy broken beyond measure, Adam didn’t feel repulsed or afraid or uncomfortable.

He just felt… peaceful. Still inside. Quiet.

That was what scared him, because Adam Parrish couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt quiet.

When Adam looked at Ronan again, his expressive was still devoid of any emotion at all, but he broke the magic spell.

"Haven't you had enough?" he asked.

"I don't scare easy." Adam said simply.

"What are you trying to prove?" the suspicion in his voice was hurtful, but Adam just shrugged. "That I'm here to stay." 

“Go,” He finally said. “I’ll be fine.”

Adam pretended that his heart didn’t plummet a little at those words. All this silent treatment and that was all he had to say for himself? He still wasn’t willing to talk about what had happened with Kavinsky, and now this lack of reaction to what had just happened?  
  
Disappointment and irritation were fumes inside him, but he voiced none of his concerns. Now was not the time. Instead, he just bit his lip. _I want you to talk to me._ “Are you sure?”

“You don’t want to be here when I’m dreaming.”

 _But I do._ “Okay,” Adam wanted to argue, but he relented. He could feel Ronan’s gaze pinned on his back, burning a hole through his stomach as he peeled away and reluctantly padded back to his own room, carefully shutting the door behind him.

He took a moment to lean against the cool wood of it and let out a long sigh. There were times he was convinced Ronan’s ability made a dream thing of Ronan himself and he didn’t even know it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- the chapter's namesake is a song by 'hands like houses' if anyone cares.  
> \- don't hesitate to come talk to me on [tumblr.](http://winterblues.tumblr.com)  
> \- thank you so much for reading and let me know what you thought of this chapter in the comments! :)


	10. i think you think too much of me

_-But the rain is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh upon the glass and listen for reply, and in my heart there stirs a quiet pain." - Edna St. Vincent Millay_   


* * *

He’d been expecting a check-up call from Declan Lynch all week, so he wasn’t surprised when his phone rang that afternoon, flashing the older Lynch brother’s name.

“How is he doing?” Declan said, cutting right to the chase, his voice sounded fervent; hurried like he had somewhere to be and this was a dent on his time.   
  
“Better,” Adam said, knowing how vague his voice sounded, but it was the simplest form of the truth. “I’ll write you up a cohesive report and send it to you via email sometime tonight. Would that be alright?”

“Yes, yes, but _really_ , how is he? Is he giving you any trouble at all? You’re over three weeks in, do you see room for recovery? Has he adhered to you and is there anything that I can do to help if not?” 

“Uh -” Adam started, but Declan cut him off. “I apologize if I sound like I’m in a haste, it’s because I am. I have been in a very important meeting all day and we only get a five minute cigarette break.”

“Ronan is… coping, to put it simply. He’s been exhibiting some unprecedented withdrawal symptoms, only because he attempted to keep them repressed - both from himself and from me, but I’ve sought to it that he doesn’t do it again. I definitely do see room for recovery, but I’m not sure he’s going to be all shiny and new within the end of our term. I would recommend that he get a sponsor, someone who has been through the same struggles and would be recovering along with him. They last much longer than we companions do and cost much less. Plus, it would be good for him to see things from the eyes of someone that truly understands him.” 

“Man, I don’t know about that. It was surprising enough that he didn’t send you screaming in the other direction - ah, no offense - but to find a whole new person? If he’s let you stick around, I feel like it’d be in his best interest if you stayed. If you don’t mind extending your term, I could certainly make it worth your while. Charge as you see fit.” 

“With respect, Mr. Lynch. You have to know that I can’t stick around forever, that wasn’t a requirement of the job. I have my own responsibilities and college has been taking a toll.” 

“I know, I understand. It’s just - you seem to be doing well. Okay. Compromise. Can you convince Ronan to meet me for lunch? I’d like to have a word with him and see for myself how much improvement he’s showing, and we can figure things out so on so forth. Does that sound fair?” 

“I -”

“Please, it’s been eons since I last saw my brother. The little twerp just refuses to acknowledge that I exist.” 

Adam gave this some thought, before nodding to himself. “How about this, I’ll get Ronan to cooperate, you bring Matthew with you.”

“I don’t see it necessary that -”

“If you want Ronan to take the bait, you have to sweeten the pot. I know how much it would mean to him if you brought Matthew along. He’s been wanting to see him ever since you took him away. I think this would be the first step in bridging the divide between you and your brother.”

“Maybe Ronan is influencing you rather than the other way around,” Declan snapped, sounding irked. “ _ I took him away  _ as you so creatively put it, because Ronan was a crappy role model, because he was showing unsavory traits. I took him away to protect him because a man who can beat someone half to death is a dangerous man. I wanted to keep Matthew as far from Ronan’s slow descent into crazytown as I physically could. The kid’s seen enough of hell to last him seven lifetimes.” 

“I apologize if I came across as hostile, I wasn’t making any accusations regarding your approach. It’s family business and it is not my place.” Adam quickly abated, flinching slightly.

On the other end, Adam heard someone in the background call Declan’s name. “Okay, okay. Alright. You know what? Fuck it. I’ll bring Matthew along, you just get Ronan on board. I’ll have terms and conditions, I don’t want this developing into another fist fight, but you get him to behave and I can assure you that I’ll extend his Matthew time. We can correspond the details over email.”

“Okay,” Adam replied.

“Thank you and uh… Goodbye.”

Adam sighed heavily as he tossed his phone on the bed and ran his hands over his face. Declan sounded like he was in too much of a rush for Adam to bombard him with demands for down payments and he had no idea how he was going to coerce Ronan into meeting the person he seemed to loathe most in the world, even with the perk of Matthew under his belt. Ronan was a complicated animal to say the least, and sometimes he let his spite eat away at him; let it steer him, even.

He finally decided that it was a headache for a later time and hit his books before heading to bed.    
  
He had a really important exam that he couldn’t afford to flunk the next day, one that could pretty much make or break everything he’d been working up to so far. So it was really inconvenient when he was being woken up at three-thirty am in the morning after only having slept an hour. 

He was deep in the depths of his own subconscious when he felt cold fingers at the nape of his neck and a weight against his back. He groaned softly as he half-turned and opened his eyes, a little startled by this sudden proximity.

A silhouette was leaned over him, smelling like cologne and… was that alcohol? 

For a second, every nerve in Adam’s body froze. His heart had evaporated in his chest and fear gripped at his very being, nipping at him like an eagle floundering over his dead body. Somehow, it had happened. Somehow, he had made it back here… and now he was going to get punished for ever trying to run away in the first place. 

Adam’s breath hitched in his throat as he struggled to get out the words.  _ “Dad? _ ”

“Not quite.”

It took a few passing seconds of utter delirium before Adam recognized the voice and regained his bearings. Relief was a star bursting in his stomach. He was not back home. He was still miles away. It was just a moment of weakness. Everything was as it was. Everything was alright.

“Ronan?” he muttered drowsily, rubbing his eyes and hoping the other boy hadn’t noticed how shallow his breathing had gotten or how paralyzed he’d become for a moment there. “What are you doing?” 

It took Adam about half a millisecond to realize what was happening and he practically shot up from the shock. “Ronan,” he repeated.  _ “Have you been drinking?” _

When Ronan said nothing, Adam leaned over and flicked the light switch on. Ronan was sitting by his bed in a muscle tee and torn jeans, he reeked of beer and his eyes had become slightly glassy. His expression was strange, faraway. 

“How did you -” Adam bit his tongue. “Holy fuck, you dreamt yourself booze.”

Ronan laughed at that, his features all loose and carefree. Adam scrambled over and grabbed the other boy’s shoulders. “Why do you keep insisting on making my life impossible?” 

“You’re so much more fun when you’re riled up,” he slurred. “The booze helps with the withdrawal.” He added. Adam frowned, choosing to ignore the first half of his sentence and focusing on the second. 

“Alcohol is one of the things you’re supposed to be withdrawing from.” 

“It was just a six-pack.” 

Adam pressed a finger to his temple. “So why are you here now, huh? Practically announcing your insobriety to me?” 

“I want to go out.”

“It’s almost 4 AM.”

“Who cares?”

“I care, because incidentally, I do have a life outside of you and I have a very important test tomorrow that I cannot by any means miss or flunk.”    


“We’ll be back in an hour.” Ronan slurred, his words all speedy and dreary as raindrops. 

“Where do you even want to go?”

“Away.”

“Away to where?”

“I just want to drive, Ponyboy.” 

“Stop calling me that.”

“Let’s go.” He insisted.

“Why?” Adam pressed.

“It diverts my mind.” 

“Diverts your mind from what?” 

At this, Ronan stilled a moment, looking caught up in a squall of his own thoughts. Adam couldn’t help but notice how much he’d bitten at his lips, how cracked and dry and sore they looked.  When Ronan met his eyes again, he broke into a lopsided smile, one that sat strangely on his face, or perhaps Adam only thought that because he’d never seen Ronan smile like that before. 

Most of his smiles were angry, sarcastic, menacing or an unhealthy mix of the three. This smile was pure, natural; a slip of unfettered lips.

“Diverts my mind from you.” He replied, pointedly.

Now Adam frowned. “What?”

He didn’t explain, instead, he just got off of Adam’s bed and turned on his heel, narcissistically expecting Adam to follow.  _ Great, so even intoxicated he’s an asshole. _

Adam groaned loudly as he stumbled over his own feet to catch up with him. “Really,” Adam snapped. “Now you’re just making me look bad.” 

Every single fucking time he thought he was making some progress with Ronan, he ended up feeling like he’d failed him instead. 

“Like catching you unconscious in the bathroom wasn’t bad enough. Now you’re drinking again! You know what? I think it’s high time your brother hires you somebody new. Someone with perhaps military grade training and the patience of a monk!” Adam blithered, exhaustedly, irksomely. 

Ronan merely shot him a haughty shrug. “Hire whomever you want, but I make no promises I won’t try to kill them.” 

“Ronan!” Adam fumed, but he grabbed his coat off the hanger and tailed Ronan outside of the house and to his BMW. The night air had gotten cold and biting, the sky irritated by meddlesome thunderheads, the trees shivered in preparation.  _ Perfect. It’s going to fucking storm and I’m going to be gallivanting about the streets with a drunken idiot. _

“No. You know what. Not tonight. We’re heading right back. You need to go to bed.”

“Can’t sleep,” Ronan muttered, simply, as he slid into his car.

Adam opened the car door but didn’t get in, instead, he peaked his head inside and glowered at the other boy. “It looks like it’s going to pour hell over us.”

“It’s been pouring hell over me for some time now.”  Adam didn’t know what it was, the sudden and absolute pain in the taut edges of his expression, the static in the air frying his brain or just his dedication to the job, but he heaved a languid sigh and got in. 

Ronan didn’t want to talk, he cut to the radio to kill any conversation brimming at Adam’s lips, and Adam tolerated it for the most part, but eventually, he was going to need an explanation.

It turned out that a lot of the explanation was clear in Ronan’s mannerisms. He didn’t say a lot in words, but he wielded his body like a tongue. The first thing Adam noted was Ronan’s discolored knuckles, an injury he could’ve retained from a dream or from a plastered attempt to scare a wall into receding for him. 

The next thing Adam noticed was how tense Ronan looked, from the tightness of his jaw to the way he flinched ever-so-slightly every time he swallowed. Even his hands on the steering wheel were shaking pretty badly, a reaction so profuse it was one Ronan didn’t even bother to hide. 

The withdrawal really had been worse than either of them had anticipated. Ronan was clearly in pain and he’d taken the alcohol in a moment of weakness, a last resort to abate the disorder in his system. “You’re in bad shape,” Adam said. Not a question. 

Ronan didn’t glance his way as he replied. “You’ve tried your hand at human math, now try your hand at human pottery! Come on and reshape me, Parrish.” 

There was something other than sarcasm dripping from his words, something numb and battered. 

“Ronan,” Adam’s voice was softer now. 

“Oh captain, my captain.” 

“Are you in pain?”

“When will you give up trying to get a straight answer out of me?” Ronan challenged, ever the slacker, even in his weakened state.

“When you start giving them to me.” Adam replied, with a small shrug. 

“Till infinity and beyond, then.”

“We’ll have to separate ways eventually.”

Ronan scoffed. “Can’t wait.”

“Me neither,” Adam lied. The truth was, he wanted to stick around, he so-badly wanted to help Ronan, but there was only so much Adam could do. If by the end of the term, Ronan remained this rigid and impenetrable, than Adam would have no choice but to give up and move on. 

He was tired, and he had his own life to worry about. He couldn’t help someone who didn’t want to be helped. 

Thunder had begun to rumble overhead, dull & drone-like. Adam could feel the beginnings of a storm enfolding all around him. He turned on Ronan. “You still have no destination in mind?”

“It used to rain like this in Ireland,” Ronan muttered, rather absentmindedly. His eyes were still doing that glassy thing. Little droplets of rain had begun to appear over the windshield. Ronan turned the wipers on. 

“I remember this one time, I couldn’t sleep at night, so I went to my parents room and dad was awake, too. When he asked me to go back to sleep and I told him the thunder was scaring me, he just got out the car and took me with him. We drove for hours in the midst of a rainstorm and when we were on our way back home, I told him the thunder didn’t scare me anymore and he said, ‘Good, son. There are only two things a man should ever be afraid of: women and death.’ I thought it was bullshit of course, but I’d appreciated the sentiment.”

Adam was quiet, a little floored by this barefaced submittance of information. Ronan’s eyes were a deceiving grey in the grim light of the blurry night, and Adam felt his throat constrict. 

“Man, those Ireland summers were the fucking best,” he went on. “Declan and I would wrestle and make pillow forts, Matthew always stuck to our parents. It’s funny how I dreamt him but he was always more attached to mom. Dream things gravitate to other dream things, maybe?”

Adam stopped breathing. It took him several heartbeats to get his lungs working again. The casualness of his tone deceived the horrifying notion hidden somewhere in there. Had Aurora Lynch been a dream thing too?

_ What else have you been keeping from me, dreamer? _

Adam stared at Ronan with new appreciation, the son of a dream... was that how he'd come to be a dreamer?  _W_ _ hat  is this, what is he?  _ Adam refrained from asking, mostly because he knew he wasn’t going to get the answer he desired, but also because it was clearly something that pained him and he was in enough of it as it was. 

When it was clear Ronan wasn’t going to continue, Adam finally spoke, finding a segway in his words. “Speaking of Matthew,” he started. “Do you want to see him again?”

Ronan looked at Adam as if he were stupid. “Yes,” his voice was rough and hesitant. 

“I can make that happen. In fact, I’ve already made it happen.”

Instead of asking him how, Ronan simply shook his head. “And what’s the catch?”

“That you meet Declan for lunch.”

Ronan said nothing for awhile before bursting into unchained, hysterical laughter. When he stopped, it was only because his face had gone white with nausea. Ronan veered the car to a stop and retched out of the side door. “Jesus,” Adam let out a gasp. “Just let me drive.” 

This time, Ronan didn’t argue. They switched seats and Ronan popped a few mints Gansey had presumably left in his car.  Adam took a deep breath as he rested his hands on the steering wheel, closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the top of it.    


“Are you fucking meditating right now?”

Adam opened his eyes. “I’m plotting your murder.”

“If only I was that easy to kill.”

For some reason, Adam smiled. “If only.”

As they continued to drive, Adam noticed quick flittering glances from Ronan, whose eyes would follow his moves and then trickle away. It was a little unnerving, but Adam didn’t question it. He was probably still a little delirious from the alcohol. 

The storm had fully blossomed now, thunder growled viciously overhead, the trees were panting in fear, lightning flashed every few minutes, bright-white streaks of daylight amongst the blotchy tethers of night. 

Driving was getting difficult at this point, with visibility almost at zero. So he swerved the car to a halt carefully; at the side of the road right before the intersection - which was pretty much deserted under the circumstances anyway. 

“Why have we stopped?” Ronan asked, like he wasn’t seeing the absolute raging rainstorm outside.

“We’re going to have to wait the storm out, no thanks to you. If I fail my fucking paper tomorrow, I’m going to have you to blame.”

“Take a number,” Ronan replied, sounding dry. “Everyone blames me for something. Hey, do you think I could set the apocalypse in motion if I tried?”

“Oh, I’m positive,” Adam muttered. 

Ronan smirked at this, dark and fond. He seemed to enjoy the thought of chaos and destruction.    
  
It would’ve been unnerving, if Adam didn’t know better. “When will you cut the act?”

“What act?”   


“This nihilistic act of yours.” 

“Who said anything about it being an act?”

“You keep forgetting your fallacies don’t work on me.”  
  
“You keep forgetting that I don’t care what you think of me.” 

Adam merely shook his head and let out a gasp as he took a look at the time. It was almost five am and he needed to be showered and on his way to uni by seven. If this storm didn’t clear soon, he was doomed. A part of him was furious enough to explode, to rage against Ronan, to stomp out into the rain and hitchhike back. A part of him was rethinking every decision he’d made uptill now that had led him to this point. This job was not supposed to get in the way of his future, it was  _ supposed _ to get him there faster. 

Ronan Lynch was making sure that Adam was suffering just as much as he was, and it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fucking fair.

Another part of him kept his mouth shut on the account of professionalism and the absolute tremors taking place in Ronan’s blue eyes. “If you ever take another drop of alcohol in front of me again I swear to god Ronan I’ll send you packing back to rehab myself.” Adam snapped, bitterly. “I mean, do you see what the withdrawal is doing to you? The alcohol just makes it worse.”

Ronan was smiling, and it was making Adam crazy. He broke into a frown. “What?”

“Look at your face. You’re actually concerned.”

“Does that surprise you?”

Ronan shook his head. “That makes me think you’re stupid.”

“Excuse me?” 

“You saw how I treat Gansey, you know I’m not worth investing in.”

“Lynch, if I thought you weren’t worth investing in I would’ve dropped your ungrateful ass a long time ago.”

“Exactly.” Ronan tapped a finger against his temple meaningfully. “Stupid.”    


“No.  _ Hopeful _ .”

Ronan was quiet a long time then, the smile long wiped off his face. They listened to the rain thrumming against the hood of the BMW, it was almost lulling and Adam’s eyes prickled with sleep. It was Ronan’s next words that jarred him from his drowsy state, “I think I dreamt you up sometimes. Like you’re some kind of coping mechanism.” 

Adam’s voice was hoarse. “I’m as real as you are.” 

Ronan arched an eyebrow. “And how real am I?” 

“Real enough that you can take things out of your dreams and bring them to life.” 

“You say that like it’s a fucking fairytale.” 

“It sure sounds like one.”

“It’s a curse, Einstein.” Ronan wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Well, everything has its pros and cons. Naturally, you’ve got your share of cons, but I think it’s a beautiful gift.” Adam knew he sounded sappy, but he would never get over this whorling impossibility, this wondrous thing of magic that Ronan Lynch was. No wonder the real world bored him when he was the creator of his own.

When Ronan didn’t reply, Adam turned to face him. “Tell me something,” he began. “Out of all of the things that you could dream up, atomic bombs and hatchets and guns, why do you choose to dream tender-hearted brothers and harmless corvids and snowglobes?”

“If you think Chainsaw’s harmless you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought.” 

“You know what I mean.”

“Beep,” Ronan muttered. “Next question.”   


“Are you going to show up and behave for lunch with your brother?”

“Don’t take my word for it.”

“Isn’t it worth a crippled ego if it means that you get to see Matthew?” 

Ronan stared down at his lap, his fingers twitching. His dark lashes dripping like sunset. “It’s not ego.”

“What is it, then?”

Ronan turned the question on him. “How did you convince my dick brother to let Mathew within a ten mile radius of me anyway?”

“I’m persuasive,” Adam replied, without a hint of modesty.

Ronan scowled at this. “More like obstinate.”

“Call it whatever you want, it’s only ever worked in my favor. Sometimes, the only way to heed positive results is to force them.” It was as truthful as he’d ever been. If the world didn't think you were worth its while, you had to demand things from it anyway. Adam had gotten where he was through sheer determination and hard work. 

He knew that life was often cruel and dissatisfactory and unjust, he’d paved a way through his own blood, sweat and tears. 

You couldn’t just sit around and expect your world to change, you had to get up and make it happen, no matter the consequences, no matter the pain. Pushing through was the most important thing. It was the only important thing.

It was why creatures like Ronan baffled Adam, the mere ideology of not caring where your own life was headed terrified him more than anything else. 

With that attitude, Adam would still be living off scraps in the southside of town, feeding on beatings and vile insults; drinking himself to liver failure just to numb the brutality of his own cowardly being.

With that attitude, Adam would have been a Robert-In-Training and one day, he would wake up and find himself the same old bitter man who had preceded him. 

The thought itself made him shudder. 

“Promise me,” the firmness in his own voice startled him. “Promise me you’ll show up and you’ll behave and you’ll try.”

“You know I don’t lie.” Ronan said.   


“Then don’t lie.” Adam replied, simply. 

Thunder rattled overhead, loud enough that Adam felt like the earth beneath their feet was shaking. There was something feral and inexplicable in Ronan’s bickering blue eyes then, something that chased itself down Adam’s spine and blew a hole clean through his ribcage.    
  
Just when Adam thought that Ronan was going to burst a vein or grab him in another headlock, Ronan wrenched forward and kissed him. 

Adam was alarmed into stilling, every nerve inside him iced. The kiss was angry, it was gruff, it was harsh as a fist pressed against his lips. It knocked the air right out of him. 

He wasn’t sure, for a moment, if he was being kissed or if he was being throttled. Somehow, it felt like both. 

Ronan’s lips were warm though, and they sent Adam’s pulse spiralling. He could feel Ronan’s fingers dig into the skin at the nape of his neck, hard enough to leave indents. Adam’s mouth slid open inadvertently against his, but he still felt unable to move, unable to understand what was happening. Adam had never been kissed like this before, he hadn't known the gesture to be so rough and demanding. So intoxicating. 

Everything inside him tumbled towards Ronan’s unexpectedly heated mouth. Ronan was kissing him like the entire world had been resized to include only Adam’s lips. He was kissing him like he was desperately fighting off something, in either himself or in Adam, a blow rather than a mere tangle of lips. He was kissing him in a way that made Adam feel like every part of his body had caught on fire. 

Ronan pushed himself off when he realized Adam wasn’t really kissing him back or perhaps when he saw the absolute discombobulation in Adam’s eyes.

As he pulled back and Adam just sat there, at an utter loss for words, Ronan’s expression tightened. His eyes were steel, his lips bruised from pressing so hard. He looked more awake than Adam had seen him in days. He looked almost equally bewildered, like he hadn’t had control of his own mouth, like he hadn’t been sure what he was about to do until he’d gone ahead and done it already. 

Adam’s brain was a warning sign, lights flashing alert everywhere. Somewhere, there was a part of him that suddenly grappled onto everything that Ronan Lynch was, like that kiss had opened a door into endless insight. Most of him was just crushing thunder and a soft, dizzying daze. 

Most of him could still taste Ronan’s tongue in his mouth, feel the weight of it against his teeth. 

Maybe his body hadn't caught the memo, because Adam’s stomach curdled and he kept replaying the kiss in his mind, his wintered lips tasted like blood from the pressure of Ronan’s sabotaging mouth. 

“You should have stopped me.” Ronan said, darkly. His expression had become a thousand times more reserved, his eyes mirroring the tumultuous sky outside, and then he opened the car door and walked out into the rain, slamming it shut behind him so hard Adam had to flinch.

Adam forced himself into getting his bearings back, into remembering what it was like to breathe. He peeled himself away from the ghost of Ronan’s bruising kiss and the shock and the coveting of it and attempted to focus on reality.

Adam had no choice, Ronan was a dark blur against swirling curtains of white outpour. He was walking away and Adam had to stop the idiot before he caught pneumonia or got hit by an oncoming vehicle. He dashed out of the car and followed him into the storm.

“Wait!” he called. “Where are you going?”

“Away.” Ronan replied, voice a howl picked up by the wind.

“Stop!” Adam yelled, the rain pattering hard against his shoulders, every droplet a little slap. He could feel his jeans sticking to his thighs, his hair flattening against his head. “Stop! God damn it.” 

Ronan halted, turned on his heel, and faced him. “God damn you.” 

“I… We…  _ Listen _ ,” Adam sounded like a fumbling fool and he knew it. He looked up to meet the other boy’s eyes. Ronan was drenched head to toe, water droplets running down the length of his skin, his clothes. The rain projected an illusion of tears across the apples of his cheeks. His eyes were blue shimmering pools against the stretching darkness of everything else.

The stare he was shooting Adam could’ve incinerated him. 

“Please,” he then said, his entire tone changing. “I have to make it for this exam and I can’t - I won’t leave you alone.” 

Ronan’s stony expression gave way a little then, he looked slightly floored. “You are hopelessly loyal to lost causes.”

“What’s yours is mine,” Adam replied. “Please. Just get back in the car.”

Ronan sweeped him another caustic look as he made up his mind, before shaking his head and cursing something incoherent beneath his breath. He then nodded, stuffing his hands into his pockets and grumpily strode back to the car. 

He took the wheel again, so Adam hopped into the passenger seat. They dripped water everywhere, onto the seats, onto the dashboard, onto the mat at their feet. Adam felt awful about getting such a wonderful car wet, but Ronan didn’t seem too bothered by it. He would probably get it cleaned up tomorrow anyway. Money was gunpowder at his fingertips. 

They made the entire ride back home in dead silence. Adam couldn’t get the thought of Ronan’s lips out of his head. And apparently, he couldn’t get the heat of his kiss out of his mouth either. His cheeks burned every time he looked at Ronan now, his stomach bottomed out from beneath him. It was terrible. He could get in deep trouble for this. It was against the code.

Sober companions were not supposed to fraternize with their clients, or even befriend them really. They were meant to be mere guides, they were meant to be safeguards. Kissing a client was off the limits and downright frowned upon in most circles. 

If his professor found out about this. If Declan did… No, he couldn’t let his brain go there. Not right now. Right now, he had to change into warm clothes and ace a test. 

He would just have to suck it up, get through the morning and schedule the mental breakdown for later. 

“Take a hot shower,” Adam prescribed, as they shuffled back into the house. Adam’s shoes squelched against the carpet, the denim was practically eating at his skin at this point. He pulled his shirt up over his head as he headed for the kitchen. “I’m going to make us some coffee.” 

Ronan had halted by the doorframe to gawk at Adam, and for a moment, Adam felt self-conscious about the scars that lapped his bare chest and abdomen, but then Ronan merely shrugged and whirled around. “I like mine black.” 

It was a relief that warmed his bones despite how cold he was feeling. Adam had given up being mortified about his own scars a long time ago. Now they were like tattoos, a token of his survival. Reminders that he’d faced the worst of the worst and made it out of there with limbs intact and more fuel to burn than ever. 

He’d taught himself that his wounds were not something to be ashamed of, but something to be commended.

After Adam had gulped down three cups of coffee and showered, he found Ronan collapsed on the couch, fast asleep. It was the first time he’d voluntarily let himself snooze off somewhere other than his bedroom, the door to which had surprisingly been left wide open. 

Ronan had changed into track pants and a dark muscle tee and slept with one arm hung loosely to his side and the other tucked beneath his head. Adam grabbed a blanket from the boy’s bedroom and draped it over Ronan’s sleeping form before practically sleepwalking up to his room and setting to work.

It was almost seven am anyway, so he would just have to skip sleep in order to finish up some last minute revising before he headed to uni. Once he’d finished studying and packing his messenger bag, Adam bounded down the stairs to head out the door.

“Take the car,” Ronan muttered, voice sleep-drunk. 

“What?” 

“Just take it and fuck off.”

The car would be wet and usually, it was against Adam's personal code to accept such materialisic offerings, but he was desperate and late. 

Adam thought about it once more and then nodded, scooping the keys up off the table by where Ronan was curled over in sleep and rushing out. He would have said thank you, but his mind was running a mile a minute. Had Ronan Lynch just done something nice for him - and openly, this time?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- the album by EDEN with the same title is real good 10/10 would recommend   
> \- so this may and may not be the chapter you've all been waiting for, there's more to come but i hope that curbs a little bit of your appetite for now y'all thirsty hoes   
> \- PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE leave me a comment and thank you for reading!! :))


	11. Guns + Ammunition

_"From my window, there's a lighthouse, some nights you are the lighthouse. Some nights the sea. What this means is that I don't know desire other than the need to be shattered and rebuilt." - Ocean Vuong_

* * *

The exam went about as well as he’d expected. He wrote the entire thing in a haze, and his head was throbbing from the lack of sleep. He was going to have to down an Advil or ten. Not to mention he felt a cold coming on from being doused earlier.

He made a mental note to never kiss anyone merely a couple hours before a paper again. Even if he hadn't exactly been the one doing the kissing. 

He was sure he would at least pass, but he knew he wasn’t going to get the grade he’d hoped for. It would’ve made him angry if he had the energy left in him to be angry. At this point, all Adam wanted to do was go to sleep and never wake up again.

Adam groaned beneath his breath as he let himself drift along with the tide of students out of class. Disappointment warred alongside unease as he thought back on the exam. It could have gone so much better. He could have done so much better. He knew the anger would reach its boiling point, he knew that soon enough, his heart would upend as it always did and he’d be left feeling hollow. His head a gun-full of bullets with nowhere to land. Sometimes the panic snuck in without warning, a storm shattering his every horizon.

Just as Adam looked back up again, bleary eyes catching sunlight, he caught sight of Blue, who was stood in the corner, animatedly chatting up one of his professors.

“Speak of the devil,” Blue muttered from where she was leaning against the wall outside of his classroom, her eyes snagging on his. She was dressed in a bright skirt that Adam couldn't help but think made her look like a cupcake, rainbow sprinkles of various clips twinkling in her hair. The teacher she was conversing with excused himself, shot Adam a curt nod and turned away.

Blue pointed an accusatory finger at him. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in a lifetime. Usually, it only feels like a decade or two but now it’s like you’re just slowly disappearing from this dimension. _Poof!_ ”  
  
“And good morning to you too.” Adam replied, dryly.

“You look like grub that’s been chewed up and spat back out. The vulture feeding on you again?” she asked, eyes searching and concerned. 

“Something like that,” Adam muttered, his chest flaming. “Why were you talking with Mr. Saltzman?”

“Oh,” Blue said, with a dismissive wave of the hand. “He wants to get a psychic reading done. He’s pretty sure he and his wife are headed to the lonely, barren shores of Divorce Island.”

“Maybe your family's fancy flash cards will spare him the paperwork.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Blue muttered, before hurling a cup of coffee into his hands, one which Adam gladly accepted as they made their way down the hall.

“So,” she said. “How was the big paper?”

“A reflection of my life, by which I mean, a complete disaster.”

“And here I thought I was the dramatic one,” Blue teased.  
  
The sun pincered him as they escaped the hallway of roiling students and crossed into the spread-out lawns. Adam groaned, covering his eyes with the back of his hand to keep them from melting off, his head was still pounding and his throat felt stuffy, but he had three more periods left after lunch before he was free to go home and crash for a little while.

Where was the logic in all of this? Practicality was slipping beneath his fingers, being replaced with madness. He’d lived such a controlled life before and now nothing felt like it was for sure, now he felt like he’d been reduced to a chess piece, governed by some external force, and for someone who had relied on no-one but himself for so long, so blindly, that was the most horrifying prospect of all.

Sometimes he missed the simpler more mediocre jobs he’d had before he’d signed up for this insane reality show. He missed the mechanics of car engines, the ease of replacing a faulty scrap of metal, how he always knew what to do with his hands. He even surprisingly missed the grease and the weirdly lulling whir of the motors, things which had only ever reminded him of how low a branch he clung from on the great societal tree. 

Blue must’ve noticed his disinclination because she wrapped her fingers tight as could be around his arms and brought his hands down by his sides before standing up on her tiptoes to shoot him her deadliest stare, a look so noxious it could have very well rivaled Ronan’s.  
  
“How many hours of sleep did you get last night?” she asked, pointedly.  
  
“None,” Adam admitted dryly. There was no hiding anything from Blue, especially not when she was trying to do her best Mother Hen impression. Blue looked disappointed, but not the least bit surprised as she shook her head. “That’s it. You know what. You are taking the rest of the day off and getting some damn rest.”

“You know I can’t do that,” Adam said, lightly.

“Oh, I don’t care! He’s going to turn you into Frankenstein by the time he’s done with you and I’m sick of seeing you suffer on somebody else’s behalf! You’re not going to learn anything if you’re too knackered to function. Take it easy and sleep it off while I go visit your psychotic little pet project and give him a piece of my mind!”

Sometimes, when Blue got furious, her little rabbit nose got all scrunched up and her eyes grew wide enough to sip from. There was a time when Adam had been profoundly attracted to that. Now, he just felt a dull ringing and familiar warmth. 

“Look, I appreciate your concern, but there are guidelines and -”

“I don’t care about guidelines, I care about you.”

“Blue,”

“Since when do you put someone other than yourself first anyway, huh?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest questioningly. 

Adam felt his stomach drop at the scathing and accusatory undertones of her words, even while a part of him knew that she wasn't actually far from the truth. “What does that mean?” he asked, unable to keep the slight flame from his voice.

“That means it seems that your priorities are shifting!”

“My _priority_ is to be able to pay off my college tuition! I have debts up to my chin and actual goals I want to accomplish that go well beyond what I used to make. If you’ve forgotten, this job is how I can accomplish that.” Blue looked unconvinced, and rather disgruntled at his response.

Adam frowned. “What is this _really_ about?” he asked. Blue raised both her hands up in exasperation like it should be obvious. “I’ve never asked for much as your friend, because clearly your life revolves around misery and overachieving and you can't seem to untangle yourself from that orbit for long enough to empathize, but you’re hardly ever present even for me, Adam, and now… And now -” Blue’s shoulders slumped and she shook her head, the words dying on her lips.

Adam stood frozen in place as Blue shrugged, the betrayal in her eyes burning his bones. “I’m going to go now.” She decided. “I’ll see you around.”

“Blue,” he called, but she had already turned away and was halfway across campus by the time he’d managed to find his voice. Their encounter bothered him for the rest of the day. Where had he gone wrong? What exactly was it that Blue was accusing him of? He didn’t appreciate people pointing fingers and then being unable to astutely discern the blame. Adam wasn’t a mind reader by a long shot. How was he supposed to know what was going on in everyone’s minds at all times?

Despite the irksome thoughts, there was a part of him that felt guilty anyway. He knew he wasn’t winning any awards for being the best friend in the world, but he hadn’t intentionally tried to make Blue feel like she didn’t matter as much to him as he did to her. Maybe she was right, maybe sometimes, he got so caught up in his own whirlwinds, he became blind and unsympathetic to other people's plights. It was something he struggled with often, if he was being honest with himself. He knew that he wasn't some kind of anomaly by a long shot, that he wasn't the only person in the world with problems. 

When he wasn't dismissing himself, he was dismissing the world. Both habits were equally unhealthy and he knew it. 

Blue and Adam's friendship had been clumsily structured on precarious foundations, they were both indignant and experts at holding grudges. They were both equally sharp-mouthed when they got upset. There'd even been a time when they used to get into fights every other day, yet they'd clung on to each other, because despite their differences, they'd always known that they'd be there for one another. They understood and respected one another and never broke unspoken boundaries. 

Eventually, they'd mustered a sort of neutral ground. They purposely made each other into platforms for their respective angers whenever they felt like they needed to get things off their chests. They promised never to take offense to whatever was spat out in the heat of the moment.

Their friendship was established on trust and arguments that ran null and void as soon as they were done. It was like fighting a battle on no man's land; a way of working through their issues that tipped the odds to their favor without stirring up any emotional turbulence.

This however, was the first time in a long time since they’d rekindled their relationship in the form of a friendship that they’d gotten into an argument like this. There hadn't been any yelling or rage, but it'd still felt like a feverish heap of miscommunication. 

Somehow, the fact that it was over Ronan bothered him more than anything else.  
  
Blue had said he was re-prioritizing, and Adam had snubbed that notion out, but was it really so far from the truth? Getting into this mess with Ronan meant putting both his life and his future career at risk. In fact, it was putting every single thing that had ever meant _anything_ to him on the line for somebody who had made it clear to him on more than one occasion that he didn’t want to be helped.

He’d never even given a second thought to anything that required compromising his end goals, so why was he feeling so tangled up with Ronan and his crazy world of impossible dreams and hopeless quests for vengeance now? Was it even worth it?

Greenmantle was a dangerous man. If things went south, he could lose everything. Already, helping Ronan was proving to be taxing, he’d hardly caught any sleep the night before because he’d been too busy running after, arguing with and then somehow getting kissed by Ronan Lynch all in the space of a single night and his performance on the exam had suffered because of it.

No matter how much it stung his ego to admit it, Blue was right. He _knew_ she was right… but at the same time, he felt pressured into living up to his promise to Gansey, his assignment from Declan. It was what he owed to himself as well, to follow through with something that he'd started, to see it to the finish line. 

Most of all, he felt that there was a part of him that at this point, wanted - no _, needed_ \- for Ronan to get over this toxic lifestyle and see the light.

Somewhere down the line, this job had become equally as important as his future because he wouldn’t have been out here, working his ass off for a newfangled life if it hadn’t been for that blood-drenched childhood in that dusty little doublewide. If it hadn’t been for his neglectful mother and abusive father.

If it hadn’t been for that smoke-ridden town and how it had wrapped its arms around him and smothered him to death every night for all those years until he was reborn again the next morning just to die all over again. He'd been caught in what had felt back then like an infinite series of fatalities and consecutive reincarnations. 

While people were all just complex algorithms of miseries and mistakes, these were the things that turned into building blocks and stepping stones, these were the things that transformed into the fuel that was needed to burn brighter and higher.

Now that Adam had accepted the world as it realistically was, now that he’d stopped being that petty and self-pitying child he’d once been, there was a part of him that almost wanted to drive back home and thank Robert Parrish. “I just wanted to let you know that if you hadn't been such an asshole, Dad, perhaps I’d never have made it this far. So in a way, you fueled my success.”

Adam felt a shrill triumph shoot up his spine at the mere thought of the scowl that would grotesquely frame his father's face when he realized that he'd played a part in Adam's rise to the top. His ambition finally proven to be worth every risk he'd ever taken and stronger than the shitty hand he'd been dealt. 

Adam had been in the darkest of dark places. He knew turmoil like he knew the reflection that greeted him in the mirror. He knew anguish like a fist to the face. He knew damage like an ear-drum that didn’t work anymore, like a song stolen. And there, in the heart of his tragedy, he’d decided that he would get up and keep fighting instead of giving in and just ending it all.

He wasn’t going to be a coward like his father, he wasn’t going to be cornered like a pig in a pen, into becoming this person that he simply wasn’t. He wasn’t going to let his depression devour him, or his demons become him.

Instead, he decided to wield every broken part of him as ammunition and ten years from now, he would know that he'd chosen his life rather than settled for it. He’d recognized his calling, that will to live and be more than the fearful wreck his father made of him, demand more than that tiny town in the midst of nowhere could ever give him, make something of that feeling of unfairness, dissatisfaction and hatred that burned inside him.

He couldn’t just sit back and watch Ronan make the same mistakes and fall prey to a fire that somebody else had started.

He had a chance to help, to perhaps cushion the blow, steer the ship towards at least a slightly better outcome. How could he back out now? Backing out now would be cowardly, and Adam was not a coward. Not anymore. 

So he did his best despite the sleep picking at his eyelids to pay attention in class and recorded the professor's teachings on his phone to listen back to after just so that he could be extra thorough and went home feeling pretty determined about what he had to do next, before collapsing into the pleasant and lulling throes of sleep the minute his head hit the pillow.

When he woke up, the sky outside had darkened. He’d slept through the entire evening. Adam groaned as he peeled off the bed and headed to the bathroom to have a shower. He was still immensely tired, but his stomach protested lightly.

He decided he’d grab some dinner, check on Ronan and tackle some homework before he went back to sleep.

After he’d cooked himself some pasta, he found Ronan sitting out in the living room on his favorite couch in his favorite pair of dark jeans. An abandoned pizza box sat open on the coffee table by his feet.

Adam’s eyes widened as he approached him, taking note of the bible that sat in his lap. Adam knew Ronan had grown up in a catholic household, but he didn’t quite know a lot of people who recreationally carried bibles around. Especially if said people were mouthy teenage boys nursing an alcohol addiction and considering murder.

“Is that what I think it is?” he asked, as he pulled up a chair so that he could sit opposite Ronan. When Ronan didn’t answer, Adam leaned forward and pursed his lip.

“Have you changed your mind, then?” it took a moment for Ronan to comprehend what he meant, and when he did, he levelled a sharp gaze on Adam.

“No.”

“Alright,” Adam said. “I was just trying my luck.”

Ronan went back to staring at the bible in his lap. “So, are you done forming our evil master plan?”

Adam nodded. “Almost.” There were still a few kinks here and there that he had to figure out before he laid everything bare in front of Ronan.

"Well, chop, chop and all that. We haven't got forever." 

"Soon," Adam insisted.

They were quiet after that, as Adam scooped up the bowl of pasta he’d prepared for himself and ate in silence. He couldn’t keep his eyes from darting to Ronan every now and then, whose bullet-proof expression gave absolutely nothing away about what he might be feeling.

He hadn’t brought up the kiss, and a part of him wondered if he’d forgotten. Of course, Ronan hadn’t been drunk enough to have forgotten, perhaps he was just blocking it from his memory. Perhaps it had been some kind of weird one-off, a spur-of-the-moment reaction borne out of insecurity and the alcohol clogging his system.

Adam wasn’t sure if he should bring it up himself. On one hand, it felt like the customary thing to do, so that he could ward off any potential advances. It was far from professional to pursue an intimate relationship with a client. On the other hand, if Ronan wasn’t bringing it up, perhaps he really didn’t want to talk about it. Maybe he was even embarrassed by it.

It would make sense. Why would he pick someone like Adam? Someone who he’d made pretty damn clear he disliked and only tolerated for the sake of their mutually beneficial deal. If Ronan was into boys, surely, he’d be into Gansey. Money-minted, princely, rich-hearted Gansey. Adam himself didn’t know what to feel, there was a part of him that was still wrung in disbelief, like the entire car ride had been imaginary.

Except… Except he could still feel that kiss. He could feel it stirring in his bones. He remembered what Ronan’s tongue tasted like, how it hung in his mouth like warm wine. The sensation was so foreign it scared him a little bit. 

Adam had not kissed a lot of people in his life. He’d certainly never kissed another boy before. He tried to rule it off as some kind of knee-jerk reaction that probably had more to do with physical notions rather than emotional ones and hauled the thought away.

“You know, our Psychology professor did a lecture once, on the bible. He talked about how everybody had a slightly different take on it. How people often derived their own meanings from the passages, their opinions and ideas of them often varying from what may have actually been intended. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? How ten people can perceive the same passage in ten different ways.” Adam said, talking for the sake of making conversation.

"I suppose it's just like how a critic views a piece of art or literature, how it often says more about the critic himself, and his internal struggles, than the artist or the author they're trying to comment on."

Adam knew he was rambling, but Ronan was looking like he was going to shut down once again, and Adam would do everything in his power to keep that from happening. Ronan shot him a withering glance. “And your point is?”

“The point is if you’re contemplating damnation. Don’t.” Adam replied. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from that lecture, it’s that the world isn’t as black and white as we imagine it to be. Maybe that’s one thing that reality and dreams have in common. Neither one is that simple.”

Ronan said nothing, but Adam could feel his gaze linger. Intense as a laser. Adam scoffed down the last of his pasta and placed the bowl on the counter before stretching his legs out in front of him and getting up to clear the clutter. He returned to the living room after grabbing his books from the cupboard and retreated to the far end of the room to study in peace whilst still keeping an eye on the other boy. 

Adam was caught up in an intriguing thesis about certain cognitive dysfunctions when a voice from somewhere behind him jarred him back to reality.

“How was your oh-so-important test?”

He hadn’t even heard the other boy move, but Ronan had abandoned his couch to take up a post behind Adam’s chair, his fingers curled around the top of the cool wooden backrest.

“It could’ve been better.” Adam responded, simply.

Ronan propped himself on the chair next to Adam’s and leaned in to have a look at Adam’s work. “You blame me then,” he said, not really a question. More like an accusation.

Adam didn’t look up from his book. “No,” he said. “I shouldn’t have let you out in your condition or agreed to go with you in the first place.”

“Don’t take it personally,” Ronan said, with a sarcastic smile. “I’m prone to getting my way.”

“I wish I had evidence to prove otherwise.” Adam muttered, dryly.

“Why Psychology?” Ronan asked, when Adam just shot him a look, Ronan tilted his chin up tauntingly. “What, you can bombard me with questions but  _I_ can’t? You don’t play fair, Parrish.”

Adam shrugged then. “I like understanding how human beings function. What makes them tick. What motivates people to make the decisions that they choose to act on. How they engage certain impulses, and bury others. They’re not like cars where missing or misfiring autoparts can just be easily replaced, you know?”

“Sounds like a fucking mindtrip.”

“It is, in a way.” Adam nodded. When Adam was younger, he’d always wondered what had turned his father into this terrible monster he’d come to know. Even monsters had their origin stories, just like heroes. When it came to nature or nurture, Adam was a strong believer in the philosophy that monsters were made and not born.

There could be an argument made for monsters that were born, but that had more to do with biological malfunctions of the mind than life experiences. Adam was far more interested in the murky action-and-consequence side of the coin.

Somebody had made his father into a monster, who’d in turn made his mother into one. They’d even tried to get Adam on the big, ugly monster board, but Adam had refused to give in. There was a part of him that demanded to know what made his father into this, what had fueled him with all of this rage and loathing. 

He’d demanded to know how his brain worked, if he could chalk it up to some kind of personality disorder, maybe he’d feel a little less awful about having to be his son.

"I wanted to make sense of someone.” He admitted.

Ronan arched an eyebrow. “Was it someone who liked to beat the shit out of you for fun?”

Adam felt his breath hitch in his throat as he dragged a cautious gaze to Ronan.

“How did you -”

“You shouldn’t take your shirt off in front of people if you don’t want them to count all your ouchies.” Ronan prescribed. Adam flashed back to the wee hours of the morning, when his brain had been too scrambled from that exhausting night that it’d completely slipped his mind.

Adam opened his mouth and then closed it. What could he even say?  
  
“Hell, man. It looks like someone mistook your ass for a fucking pinata.” Ronan said.

“My father,” Adam replied, between gritted teeth. What did it matter? It wasn’t like it was some big secret and perhaps this sharing would propel Ronan to open up some more himself.

“Did he knock all the candy out of you?”

“He sure tried.”

Ronan’s smile was as brutal as it was strangely relieving. All his life, people had looked at him like he was the victim. “Oh, you sweet, poor thing!” they’d say. He was looked at as helpless hawk meat and nothing else. It was the rancid pity in people’s eyes when they realized he’d been abused that drove him over the edge.

Even Blue had looked like she’d felt sorry for him, having grown up in a family so full of love that she didn’t quite comprehend what it was like to wake up some nights in a cold sweat and contemplate killing your own fucking parents.

Ronan was looking at him now with no sympathy whatsoever. He was looking at him like he was a winner. It was encouraging in the weirdest way, this casual dismissal of his tragedies, this undeterred ferocity in his eyes. This was a boy who understood and accepted the brutalities of the world. A boy who’d maybe even learnt to wield it to his benefit.

“I knew there was something interesting about you.” Ronan said, then.

Adam went back to his work and Ronan sat by him, perusing through a couple of Adam’s stray assignment papers.

When Adam looked up at him again, his eyes somehow concentrated on Ronan’s mouth. The way he bit into his bottom lip every now and again, or pinched the skin over his upper one when he was lost in thought. He couldn’t believe he’d been kissed by those lips, that it had only happened once, and yet he felt like he could retrace the shape of them in the dark.

Adam’s stomach did a somersault, a choking sort of heat pooling inside him as the most damning realization he’d had all day hit him like a stack of bricks: he kind of wanted Ronan Lynch to kiss him again.

Ronan seemed to catch this attention and spoke up.

“Some of this shit is pretty fucking dark.” He said, indicating to the papers.

“The human brain often is.” Adam replied.

Ronan scoffed. “You’d know,”

Adam rolled his eyes. “So would you.”

That earned him a full blown grin. “I was thinking about Church sundays with my brothers. It was kind of a Lynch family ritual before shit hit the fan.” Ronan said. It took Adam a minute to realize he was explaining his stare-match with the bible earlier.

“Maybe you can restart it.” Adam suggested.

“Yeah. I’ll just press the big red button and BOOM! It’ll all be okay.”

“I meant let’s set up that lunch date. I’m supposed to be getting back to Declan soon anyway.”

“No thanks.”

“Come on, Ronan. You’ll get to see Matthew again.”

“And what will I say to him?” Ronan asked, eyes darkening. And Adam realized that it was fear that was keeping Ronan from going through with this rather than spite or fury. It was strange, fear wasn't exactly something he'd ever thought Ronan capable of, and yet it made a mountain of sense. Ronan's entire life had been derailed, and now, every move he made was somehow fueled by his fear. He liked to play at being fearless, and for the most part, he succeeded at it, but Adam could see it now.

Declan he could tackle, but how was he going to explain himself to Matthew?

The one person in this world who clearly came above everyone and everything else. The one person in this world who was living proof, at least to Adam, that Ronan had a heart.  

“I’m sorry I fucked up?” Adam suggested, only partially kidding.

“I don’t fucking swear in front of kids, shithead.”

“Ronan Lynch,” Adam pretended to gasp. “Is that morality I sense?”

“Fuck off.”

Adam laughed, loud and surprising, and Ronan pressed a thumb to his mouth to cover his own smile.

“Seriously, Lynch,” Adam said. “He’ll forgive you.”

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

“Optimism will get you nowhere.”

“It’s not optimism, I just happen to believe in you. Is that so hard for you to see?”

Something flickered in Ronan’s eyes, but Adam couldn’t understand it because it was gone as soon as it had come. Then he said, “You’re such a loser.”

“You’re going for that lunch if I have to handcuff you to me and drag you there by my knuckles.”

“I could find several more productive uses for the handcuffs.” Ronan said, with a sly twist of the lips. Adam’s heart burned a little in his chest. What was happening? Was Ronan Lynch actually flirting with him?

Adam leaned over, holding his chin up on his elbows. “Tell me you’ll go.”

“I don't have to tell you shit.”

“Ronan,”

“Fine. I’ll fucking go. But if things go south, I’m going to rip Declan’s head off and then I’ll come for you.”

Adam smiled, sitting back, satisfied and a little smug about the fact that he’d finally gotten the unmovable Ronan Lynch to give him an inch. Maybe two. Did a kiss count? _God_. He really needed to stop thinking about that stupid kiss.

* * *

“So you forgive me?” Adam had asked that afternoon on the phone, voice hopeful.  
  
“Forgiveness is a deceptive word you know, because it doesn’t necessarily suggest forgetfulness or reacceptance. It just means you're off the hook. I don’t throw such words around.” Blue’d replied.

Adam pursed his lips together. “Is that a no?”

“That’s an ‘I’ll think about it.’”

After that brief phone conversation, Adam had stopped by Nino’s after class to apologize to Blue in person, and he was lugging a week’s worth of yogurt with him. Not being able to talk to Blue was an agonizing thing, like there was an empty void being created within his chest, an integral part of him that needed immediate fixing.  
  
Nino’s was a charming little place, depending on who you asked. Always rich with the enlightening scent of coffee beans, cheap air fresheners and kitchen tile solution.

The snug little red booths spread out in every corner were right out of an eighties movie, the TV blasting indie rock, the waiters’ aprons matching the neon tinge drenching everything.

Adam thought the cafe gave off that lazy, docile sense of being caught in a time loop, where your waffles were perpetually syrupy and your wallet was constantly emptying its contents up on the table and your hands were always motioning for a refill, removed by the chaos of the world outside.

Adam spotted Blue wearing a plastic smile as she handed a couple of menus to her customers, her hair bitten raw by an army of colorful clips, her dress beneath her apron bubblegum pink with white frills. Once again, she looked like a dessert topping. 

When she caught sight of him, she kindly excused herself and stomped over, eyes calculating, lips pressed into a grim, disapproving scowl. “You’re in enemy territory, you know that.”

“You were right,” Adam said, gulping back his ego. “I’ve not been a very good friend to you and I want to make it up to you. Please give me another chance." He said.

"What would I do without you?” he theatrically added, just to accommodate Blue. 

“Choke on your own spit, probably. Not that I care.” She snapped haughtily, before turning on her heel and ambling over to the counters to bounce off some orders.

Adam followed her, placing a plastic bag brimming with artificially flavored yogurts in front of her.  
  
Blue’s gaze darted to it, and when she looked back up at him, Adam wasn’t sure whether she was going to punch him or not. “Adam Parrish, if you think that you can weasel your way back into my good graces with a half-assed apology and a couple dozen cartons of yogurt then you’re... then you’re absolutely right. Come here and give me a hug, you big Leaning Tower of Brood.” Blue said.

Adam broke into a smile he could actually feel in his cheeks as he leaned over and wrapped his arms around her.

“I was being sort of a dick,” he mumbled, into her hair. She smelt like warm chocolate and caramel drizzle.

“Sort of would be an understatement, but we can discuss the specifics of our qualms later.” Blue replied, as she pushed away from him.

“There’s something I wanted to talk about,” Adam admitted. “Talk away,” Blue said, a little distractedly as she picked up her plastic bag of assorted yogurt snacks and clutched it to her chest, before pushing it to the far left of the counter to get back to later.

“Distract me from the woes of the public service industry.”  

“You look like you’re about to burst into a flame,” Adam pointed out.

Blue’s eyes almost bulged out of her tiny head as she shook it vigorously. “Believe me, I’ve been considering poisoning people’s drinks all day. Some girl actually came up to me today asking for an iced, sugar-free vanilla latte with soy milk. Soy milk! I actually had to spit in her drink. Hey, don’t look at me like that. She brought that upon herself. _Soy milk? Sugar free vanilla?_ Is that some kind of sad joke? If you’re dieting, weirdo, just stick to green tea and spare us all the horror of having to make you a sacrilegious drink.”

Adam knew she wasn’t meaning to be funny, but he had to bite back a laugh anyway.

“I’m taking five!” Blue called rowdily, before turning back around and wrapping her fingers around Adam’s wrist, dragging him to the far end of the cafe where it was quieter and slid into a private booth. Adam frowned. “Are you allowed to do that?”

“I work here, which means I practically live here. Sit down. Make yourself at home.”

Adam just shook his head and sat down. There was no arguing over such things with Blue.  
  
“What if I told you I was making progress?” Adam said, dribbling his fingers over the table.

“I’d tell you that I still want to meet him, to make sure he isn’t just a pack of wild vultures stacked atop of each other, hiding in a leather jacket.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. I’ll take you to meet him. On two conditions, one, you don’t tell him you’re privy to the nature of our relationship and two, you don’t try to fight him.”

Blue looked doubtful. “Will he _make_ me want to fight him?”

Adam considered this. “He makes concrete want to fight him.”

“Phsaw,” Blue said. “I could take him. Even if he’s just a bunch of vultures stacked atop each other, hiding in a leather jacket.”

Adam was a little horrified of the prospect of Ronan and Blue crossing paths, as if it might send the entire world hurtling off its path and into the maws of a giant black hole. His brain listed an entire dissertation worth of things that could go wrong when two creatures made of the same impossible stuff sized each other up for the first time, but Blue’s friendship was just that important to him, and if he was being honest, he wanted to test Ronan’s reaction, convince himself of something.

Convince Blue that he wasn’t blind, that this was a person worth investing in despite all his shortcomings. He needed to convince himself by convincing someone else of his intentions, so that he knew he was doing the right thing. He was tired of Blue second-guessing this, and he was tired of second-guessing himself.

He knew it definitely wasn’t the smart or easy thing to do, but something about it felt right, like he was making a difference, no matter how insubstantial. In the long run, he was hoping to save Ronan from himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i know this chapter was kinda light i guess compared to the last super intense one?? good things are coming though. i think it was important here to focus a little on adam's inner conflicts so... yup.  
> \- please don't forget to leave me a comment & thank you so much for reading!! :)


	12. Old Haunts

_"Grief, I am most awake in you. I am as blunt and necessary as a thumb, and as ugly, puzzled, at war with myself again. Again, as if ever I wasn't." - Ari Banias_

* * *

It was like dragging a lamb to slaughter. A very pissed off, uncooperative lamb who was more furious than frightened. Ronan was stiff and indignant as they made the drive to the restaurant.

He was giving Adam the silent treatment again, but at this point that didn’t stop Adam from trying to communicate with him anyway.

“Are you ready to see Matthew again?” Adam asked, even though Ronan was clearly more interested in gawking out the windows than engaging in conversation.

He was dressed in what Adam assumed passed for formals when it came to him, in a pair of jeans that for once, didn’t have any holes in them and his signature black jacket and undershirt. His cologne made the entire car smell evocative and misty. He kept fiddling around with his leather wrist bands, bringing them to his mouth every now and then to gnaw on.

Ronan had let him drive, probably just so that he could stare begrudgingly at everything and fiddle with his jittery hands in peace.

It was kind of a sullen afternoon, the sun camouflaged behind groves of bushy clouds, like it was making attempts to reflect Ronan’s rotten mood. Adam watched as he abandoned his wrist bands to snag his lighter from the car compartment, but instead of flicking it on and off as usual, to watch the flames grow and die, he heaved it irritably back at the dashboard.

“Damn,” Adam teased. “If I’d known meeting your brothers was going to be this stressful for you I would have kept the paramedics on call.”

Ronan responded to his light badgering with a time-old gesture involving his longest finger.

Once they’d pulled into the parking lot however, Ronan didn’t get out of the car. He just sat there in disassociated silence.  

Adam turned to him. “Hey,” he prompted. “We’re here.”

“I changed my mind,” Ronan’s voice was hoarse. “Let’s go back.”

“Ronan, we’re here. We’re not turning back now.”

“Fine,” Ronan said. “I’ll make my way back by my fucking self.” Even as he said it, he remained glued to the seat, as if his body wasn’t responding to the signals his brain was sending its way.

“Hey,” Adam said again, tentatively resting a hand atop Ronan’s, which he’d bawled into a fist in his lap. Ronan didn’t shirk it off, but he fixed Adam with a heavy scowl.

“Do it for my sake, if not for yourself. I _am_ planning to commit a false felony for you, after all.”

“Keyword ‘false’” Ronan replied, simply.

Adam let out a small, frustrated sigh. “The point I’m trying to make is that I’m still here for you even though anyone else would’ve packed their bags and moved country to get away from this sticky situation you’ve pasted yourself in.”

Ronan scoffed at that. “Nobody asked you to.”

“And yet here I am, hanging on. Don’t I get some consideration for that?” Adam prodded.

“No,” Ronan snapped, before wiggling his arm free from beneath Adam’s loose grasp.

“Okay, if you won’t do it for me, maybe you’ll do it for your brother.” Adam said, taking his hand back into his own lap. “Declan told me that Matthew’s really excited to see you, and I’m sure even you wouldn’t have the heart to disappoint a hopeful kid.”

“You seem to be sure about a lot of things about me,” Ronan said, curling his lip in a snarl.

“Declan. Matthew. Lunch. _Now_ ,” Adam pressed, already shifting in his seat to undo his seatbelt.  
  
“You are relentless,” Ronan muttered gruffly.

“You’re one to talk,” Adam replied.

He’d just wrapped his fingers around the door handle when Ronan reeled him backwards with a deadly grip around Adam’s upper arm. Adam turned, startled. Ronan’s eyes were deep blue storms.

“I can’t face him,” he insisted, now with a bit more urgency as he looked anywhere but at Adam. “Who knows what kind of goose shit Declan’s got filled into his head about me.”

“You don’t seem to me like the type of person who gets chickened out by the prospect of confrontation.” Adam said, choosing his offhanded words on purpose, hoping to ignite a spark under the other boy’s skin.

If he saw this as a challenge, he’d be more likely to comply. Especially when he went about life like it was a perpetual fight, as if there was an invisible boxing ring encircling his perimeters at all times.

“I don’t,” Ronan snapped, gruffly. “But it’s useless. It just drives the nail into the coffin.”

“It’s  _called_ taking responsibility for your actions.”

“You talk too much,” Ronan’s voice was arsenic, and Adam noted that his grip on Adam’s arm was harsh enough to leave stinging marks in the shape of his fingers on his skin. It was a strangely rousing thought, one that made a certain, unwanted heat pool in Adam’s gut.  
  
“Silence unsettles me,” Adam admitted.  
  
“Is that so?”

Ronan let go of Adam’s arm, but he leaned into Adam’s face and for the briefest moment, Adam wondered if he was going to kiss him again. Instead, he just dug a twisting finger into Adam’s cheek. 

From their proximity, Adam could see how long and dark Ronan’s eyelashes were, the taut, fading lines of old scars earned from various brawls, the steady clench of his jaw, how it seemed to change the shape of his face. 

Adam almost felt like reaching out and thumbing Ronan’s entire face, learning every ridge and depression that made him give way. Once again, he felt his stomach tighten. Adam’s gaze fell to Ronan’s lips. He could still feel the weight of them as if they’d left craters against his own that needed to be refilled. His breath caught audibly in his throat. Ronan dropped his finger. 

“What are you staring at?” He said, taking notice of his ditzy gaze.

Adam had to blink a few times to haul himself back to reality. Looking at him felt dangerous in a way it hadn’t before.

“You,” Adam replied honestly, before leaning backwards a bit so that he wouldn’t have to get caught up in the pulverizing properties of Ronan’s features again.

“Look. Matthew wasn’t dragged here against his will, Ronan. He’s here because he wants to see you, and I know you want to see him too. So suck it up and let’s not keep them waiting.”

Ronan’s eyes bore into his own. There was anger beneath the blinding light of his eyes, but Adam wasn’t sure if it was all aimed at Adam or if some of it was directed internally.

“I don’t know if I’m going to fucking regret this, but I definitely fucking regret you.”

Adam felt his chest cave at the comment. Ronan slid away from him, callous as ever, and slipped out of the car, slamming the door shut behind him.

Adam quickly followed him out, slipping Ronan’s keys into his jean pocket. He hadn’t known what to wear but he’d finally settled on a pair of clean jeans and his university sweater, which he now pulled over a crisp white t-shirt, to show that he came from a reputable school.

Declan had booked a reservation at a predictably fancy establishment. Some place called ‘The Vintage Lobster’ tucked into the corner of the Upper East Side, sounding just about the right mix of grand and pretentious. Adam had to keep from rolling his eyes and pressed his lips together so that the resentment bubbling in his stomach didn’t make him run his mouth.

Only bored rich people got all decked to the nines for a casual lunch.

It bothered him a little how empty and inefficacious his wallet felt against his denim as he stared up at the ostentatious lights tacked upon the roof, glittering even in the daylight. At least he knew he would stroll in prepared for multiple swings about to be taken at his pride.

“Tacky slaughterhouse,” Ronan commented, scathingly, his fists shoved into his pockets, his gait surly and bored.

“Remember, behave. This is a reputable joint, so try not to ‘accidentally’ stab your fork into someone’s eye while you’re cutting your meat.” Adam said.

“Oh, dare I disturb Mister and Misuses Douchebag on their lunch date discussion over their divorce, their plastic surgery bills and their sixteen year old pregnant daughter.”

“Do you happen to know their daughter?” Adam asked, with a small smirk.

“I don’t get it. Do you actually _like_ making me want to run my fist through your stupid face?” Ronan asked.

“You seem to like my stupid face,” Adam responded, not really sure where the brevity came from. The other boy said nothing to respond or reject his suggestive words as they ambled up the stairs to the main door.

Ronan quickly shoved past the stretching line of people and halted at the reception. The receptionist looked rather swamped, but Ronan did not pretend to hold any regard for manners as he interjected an argument between her and a furious looking man in his mid-forties.

“I understand, sir, but we’re -”

“Reservation for the Lynches.”

The receptionist skirted through her records as the man who Ronan had cut short shot him the evil eye. Ronan shot his own version back after amping the hostility up times twenty, coercing the man into looking away. The girl nodded curtly at him, even though the once-over she gave him was more judgmental than anything. “Step right in.”

“He’s with me,” Ronan muttered, as Adam hurried at his heels, ducking his head to avoid meeting the censorious receptionist’s eyes.  
  
The insides were even grander than the outsides. Golden lanterns swathed the walls, showpieces that looked fit for a museum sat in odd places, the restaurant was busy with flickering chatter, the flooring was rich carpet. It was the land of the well-groomed and the well-moneyed.  
  
White-gloved waiters kept an eye on the customers from a respectable distance, a woman wearing a necklace heavy enough to strangle her clanked a champagne glass with her partner, a little boy dressed unnecessarily elegantly in a checkered pantsuit sat in between his mother and father, playing with the cutlery.

Just by Declan’s extravagant taste in culinary joints, Adam could tell he was oceans apart from his more careless brother. Ronan didn’t seem to see the point in frivolous splatters of gold and glitter to publicize one’s wealth, while Declan was an obvious gloat, who revelled in his place at the top of the social food chain. Despite the envious flame that erupted inside of him, Adam could understand the thirst for grandeur when it was a testament of one’s own conscientious.  
  
It smelled like steak and expensive wine and nostril-clogging perfume and freshly picked gardenias. In this restaurant, the outside world was just a passing thought. It was forever night and dinner was nothing less than a balldance. The people here seemed to think they were trapped in a noir film.

Adam instantly felt suffocated, he picked at his collar and rolled the sleeves of his sweater up, feeling sweaty despite the full-blast air conditioner.

How ignorant these people were, how entitled. They understood nothing about the real world, about the struggles of people like Adam. The world outside could be on fire and it wouldn’t touch them, not with their cash-castles to keep them safely secured in this delusional little haven they thrived in.

They wouldn’t last a day in the real world, that was for sure.

Ronan weaved through the restaurant heavily, standing out in his black attire like a sore thumb against the body of pastels and whites. He moved like a massacre, shattering the fragile glass surrounding everything else. Adam kept an eye on his back, making Ronan his anchor to reality while he sifted through this tempting dreamworld of all that he couldn’t have, of all that he so badly wanted that the ache was leaving the breath caught in his chest.

He instantly felt uncomfortable, small. The cloth of his sweater felt like a costume, like false skin. He was a snake desperately wanting to shed his flesh for something new. In his head, all these people with their effete semblances and condescending voices were turning to stare at Adam, as if they could smell the stench of trailer trash off of him.

He wanted to make himself disappear, he wanted to hide under the tables. 

His life blasted by in heated flashes until Adam’s stomach lurched with white hot rage and stars embedded his eyes.

His father’s voice indignant and grating against his skin like a cleaver, tumbling down the stairs and bruising his ribs on concrete, curling into himself in the dirt, the sharp tang of blood boiling his gums. The muted stares. His mother’s last words to him before he left. _If you leave now, don’t you ever bother coming back._

The rancid smell of alcohol and cigarettes. Police sirens. A bleeding ear. Tears stinging his eyes.

He could still feel his father’s ghost standing behind him, mocking his every move, laughing at his every misstep.

He’d gotten away, but would he ever truly leave that godforsaken town behind?

Suddenly, a waitress carrying a plate full of shrimp almost ran into him, as he muttered a hasty apology, he reminded himself to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground; to bring his head out of the clouds and dunk it back into the job.

The _job_. That was what he was here for. That was all that mattered.

Besides, even when he got rich, Adam would never be like these men and women. It wasn’t the way he’d been raised, it wasn’t in his blood. These shiny oxfords and velvet pumps would flash their teeth at the cameras and smile at you until it pained their cheeks but they hid graveyards full of skeletons in their closets. They were in it for nothing but themselves and they were gambling away their own sanity for greater rewards.

Adam was practical, not greedy. He would climb his way up the top of the ladder but he wasn’t foolish enough to try and leap for the sky. There was a limit to everything, after all. Plus, a fall that high was obvious to prove fatal.

Adam stored all the negative thoughts away into the wastelands of his mind and some of his nerves seemed to settle.

A man Adam was assuming was Declan Lynch looked up from where he was seated by the window, sipping on something sparkly in a tailored suit.  
  
Beside him, a young boy with a mop of curling golden hair and cheeks like candied apples stood up to greet them. Ronan stopped a few inches from their table as Matthew cannonballed into him, wrapping his arms around his brother’s torso in a bear hug.

“Whoa, hey there, killer,” Ronan said, chuckling as he ruffled his little brother’s hair. It was absolutely mesmerizing to watch the way Ronan’s entire face lit up like the moon, a smile Adam could tell he reserved only for Matthew gracing his face.

Adam’s eyes met Declan’s, who gave him a swift but appreciative nod. Adam nodded back.

“I missed you! I missed you! I missed you!” Matthew sang, jumping up and down excitedly before Declan shot him a subtle but reprimanding look. “Settle down, Matthew,” he chastised. “We’re in public.” Ronan shot Declan a quick, disapproving death glare, but steered Matthew back towards the seats.

“Go sit down next to Grumpy,” he said, gently. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Matthew obeyed and Ronan slid into the chair opposite Matthew, hissing at a waiter who fumbled nearby trying to push his chair in for him. Adam gently took a napkin from the waiter’s hand and thanked him for his help, offering it to Ronan before he snatched it out of the waiter’s hand or sniped viciously at him for trying to set it on his lap. 

Declan pressed his lips together tightly, watching his brother like a scientist observing an experiment gone volatile from behind glass.

Declan Lynch was a fabled businessman, looking like he belonged somewhere in between the slick pages of Forbes magazine. He was handsome in a way that was unsurprising, unlike his brother’s more unexpected and astonishing beauty. He was all sharp jawline and sturdy eyebrows and factory-packed muscle.

He had Ronan’s eyes but darker, his pupils ringed with a deep-seated exhaustion that was paralyzing only because Adam often caught it in the mirror. He even wore his dark circles charmingly, like a tired, rumpled prince. It would've reminded him of Gansey, except Declan Lynch looked like he was often condescending  _on purpose._

His hair was dark and cropped in a way that was long from the front and short in the back, something like what Adam imagined Ronan’s must’ve looked like before he’d shaved his head.

“Adam,” Declan said cordially, instead of greeting his brother. “I’m glad we could arrange this.”

“Yes,” Adam agreed. “Thank you for having us.”

“Oh, of course,” Declan said, waving his diplomacy off as Adam slid into the chair besides Ronan.

He was already pouring Adam a drink. “Whiskey?” he asked. “Or are you more of a beer man?”

“No thanks,” Adam replied. “I don’t drink.”

Declan shrugged and continued to pour the glass to the brim, assumingly saving it for himself.

“I’ll have one,” Ronan chimed in, just to piss Declan off. Adam didn’t even bother to chastise him and Declan pretended he didn’t hear before continuing.

“So,” he said, his infliction changing as he shot Ronan an expectant look. “You came. I was half sure you were going to bail. Adam here must be a hell of a good sport about his job.”

“I came because I wanted to see Matthew. Has nothing to do with your babysitter. I’m doing splendidly by the way,” Ronan replied. “Fuck you very much.”

It was a little strange to hear Ronan going back to referring to him in that way, but Adam let it slide, even if he was already fuming a little from Ronan's earlier words.

This was not the time or place to get upset, and Ronan was the last person he wanted to start a fight with, even if he was always giving him reasons to.

Matthew had gotten distracted by the lasagna on his plate, but his chin shot up as he heard his brother’s admonition. “Please don’t fight! Declan said we’re here to make up.” It was like magic how Ronan alternated between his brothers, his cement-hard gaze immediately softened like ice cream when he met Matthew’s eyes, all the fury draining out.

“How have you been, kid? What’s Chicago like?” he asked, diverting the topic and ignoring Declan’s ruffled look. “Oh, oh. It is _so_ great!” Matthew started, before exuberantly rattling off about school and the city and what he enjoyed doing in his free time in between mouthfuls of cheesy goop.

“Please,” Declan said, while Matthew and Ronan talked, handing Adam a menu. “Order whatever you’d like. Lunch’s on me.”

“I couldn’t possibly -” Adam started, but Declan shook his head. “It is the least I could do. You brought him here and whether or not we make progress today, it really means a lot. So please, allow me to thank you properly.”

Adam wanted to argue, but couldn’t seem to find the words. He felt a bomb go off in his head again, the thought of his meager pocket, the thought of how the money Declan was investing in him probably meant very little to him, like giving away Halloween candy.

So he simply bit his lip and nodded his head despite the way his stomach clenched with displeasure at the mere idea of letting someone pay for him. He couldn’t afford anything in this place anyway.  
  
With this lavish of a set-up, Adam half expected there to be filigree in the food, but he settled for the cheapest entree on the menu, ignoring every dish that ended in à la carte, before ordering and politely handing the menu over to a passing waiter.  
  
Ronan and Matthew were still deep in conversation. Declan looked a little green and he was slurping up his whiskey like it was lemonade. His expression was calm enough, but Adam could tell that there were nervous words stirring at his tongue and he would probably blurt them out loud soon enough, killing the cordial mood.

Adam, on the other hand, was content just watching Ronan, the way he nodded his head to nudge his chatty brother on, eyes rapt with interest. Of course, it was against Ronan’s nature to appear overly interested in anything, but he seemed to throw caution to the wind when it came to Matthew.

There was a genuine warmth to him just then, one that Adam could feel in between them even though he was sitting far enough away that they weren’t touching.

That’s where Adam could see who this person had truly been before life had taken a giant bite out of him and left him a hollow shell. He’d been trying for days now to incite a reaction such as this one from Ronan, but apparently all he’d had to do was set him in front of his brother.  
  
In his presence, Ronan looked more alive than he’d been in weeks. He pulled Matthew’s leg and laughed at his jokes and teased him good naturedly. It was like he was this whole other person. A strange, questioning feeling erupted in Adam’s chest as he realized there was this entire side to Ronan that he wasn’t privy to, that he might never be privy to.

At the end of their term, would Ronan even care to say goodbye, or would he just be relieved to have Adam gone? Would he have left an impression at all? He’d thought he’d been making progress, but now he felt he really was in over his head.

Adam let himself take another look at Declan, who was now drumming his fingers against the table, staying out of the lively stream of conversation, observing the back and forth.

“Ronan,” Declan repeated, half-way through the meal. Ronan didn’t look up from his burger, which he was dismantling as he ate. In true asshole fashion, he’d done the exact opposite of Adam and ordered the most expensive burger on the menu, along with three equally taxing side dishes. Adam suspected he was going to tear through the dessert menu as well, and had to wonder whether Ronan had a stomach or a vacuum.

“Since you're now past eighteen, you’re legally allowed to visit the Barns, if you wish. The trust fund money -” Ronan cut him off, crudely. “The trust fund money,” he drawled. “Ah, right. The money _you_ control.”

“Hey, it’s not like I’m keeping it all for myself. I’m spending half of my own account to send Matthew to one of the best schools in Chicago.”

“I’m sure he appreciates the charity.” Ronan practically growled.

“That’s not what I meant.”

Ronan made a dismissive gesture and went back to focusing on his food. He was eating extremely sloppily, and making vague smirks and suggestive, taunting eyes at his older brother. At one point, he even licked barbecue sauce right off his fingers.

Adam had to bite his cheek to keep from laughing at his vain attempts to get a rise out of Declan, who then leaned back in his seat, sighed and took a languid sip of whiskey before he spoke again. “Have you been cooperating with Adam?”

Ronan’s smile was a spade. “Adam’s been cooperating with me.”

“Do you feel any better?”

“Last I checked, I don’t have a terminal illness.”

“Let me put it in language you can understand. Are you willing to go back to school and finish your last year so that you can graduate, go to college and maybe, I don’t know, actually make something of yourself?”

“You mean play your pet prodigy and show up to work everyday like a good little lamb as I slowly strangle myself to death with a striped tie? Hard pass.”

“You need to graduate.”

“We don’t always get what we need.”

“Clearly,” Declan groaned, already looking a little pale-faced.

It was funny, watching them have it out like this. Mostly because Adam knew he should be handling Ronan, but he couldn’t help but see why Ronan despised his brother. Declan’s intentions were clearly pure, but it was also painfully obvious that he had no idea how to deal with his brother because he didn’t understand him at all.

Declan was even worse at getting through to Ronan than Adam had been his first week. The words were spilling out of his mouth like water, but he didn’t know how to give them any weight, he didn’t know how to form them into recognizable shapes, rather just letting them cascade off rapidly and meaninglessly.

“Your lack of ambition is appalling. If you just set your mind to it, Ronan, there’s so much that you can do. We can put this behind us.”

“What is ‘this’?” Ronan asked, there was a challenge simmering in his eyes.“Tell me, Dickface. What is _this_ that you’re referring to?”

Declan swallowed hard, he looked positively sick at the mere implication.

“Go on,” Ronan spat. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Matthew’s here,” Declan replied, weakly.

“Cover your ears, Matthew.” Ronan said and to Adam’s surprise, the kid did as he was told, cupping his ears over with his hands.

Declan faltered, his chin dimpling as his mouth fell wide open.

Ronan scoffed, his eyes like molten metal, heated and opaque. “You can’t even acknowledge it, you pussy. You can’t even face the truth of your own reality.”

“I’ve let it go, Ronan, and it’s high time that you do, too.” Declan replied, with a sigh. 

“I’m real fucking sorry I can’t be a well-adorned coward like you. I’m real fucking sorry that I actually care to find out _who murdered our father._ ”

Adam felt silence wash over the table like a freak storm. Declan’s expression was grim, Ronan’s was unimaginably cold. Matthew, bless his soul, had become distracted by a group of cheery waiters crowded around an adjacent table, singing happy birthday to someone.

Adam had drowned out all extraneous noise, he had eyes only for Ronan.

When Declan finally found his voice, it was low and defeated. “This is not what dad would have wanted.”

Ronan banged his fork against his plate so hard that Declan flinched and Adam had to lean in to make sure he hadn’t cracked the chinaware. “Oh, like you’re the expert.”

“Well, maybe I am!” Declan’s voice was hoarse now, and Adam was sure he could see a vein on his neck bulging out with unadulterated strain. “I’m handling dad’s business now. Do you know that, you ungrateful little shit? You know what he was involved in. You know he dug his own damn grave, too. Making alliances with all these dangerous people and then actively lying to them. What did he think was going to happen, huh?”

Ronan had gone perfectly still, and Adam almost felt the need to check if he was still breathing. Instead, he dug his nails into the denim of his jeans and kept quiet.

“I’m sorry, you what?” Ronan managed, after a considerable bout of silence tense enough to shudder repeatedly through all their bones.

“You heard me,” Declan said, eyebrows drawn up in indignation. “I’m trying to protect you. Both of you. That’s why I moved to Chicago in the first place. That’s why I sent you away. I didn’t want you getting involved in this shit, but after you almost beat a guy to death, I saw no option but to send you to rehab. Not to mention buying off your bail request cost me another fortune. It was the only way to make sure you didn’t stir up any more trouble, the only way to make sure they didn’t find out that you - that you -” Declan fumbled for words, but Adam had already figured out what he was going to say as he tried to get the message across to Ronan with his eyes.

Of course Declan had no clue that Adam already knew their magical family secret. Adam still wasn’t sure where Ronan’s ability came from, whether Declan possessed it too, but he had to assume that that was where this conversation was headed.

“Bullshit!” Ronan barked, voice loud enough that it drew the attention of several other dinner guests. Declan made an apologetic gesture, Ronan bristled like a bomb in the brewing, looking his brother dead in the eye, his fingers corpse-still to his sides.

“Ronan,” Adam started.

“Shut up.” Ronan roared.

He stared at Declan. Declan stared back, looking a lot more tired than he’d been a few minutes ago. “I tried to tell you,” he muttered, heaving a long sigh.

“Like hell you did.”

“It’s not like you make my job any easier.” 

_“You should have told me.”_

“You never listen.” Declan grumbled.

“Maybe you just don’t know how to keep my attention.” Ronan suggested.

“I’m not going to apologize for trying to keep you alive.”

“I’m not going to apologize for trying to find out who kept our dad from being alive.”

“Isn’t that fair enough?” Matthew said, sounding nervous, and Adam was surprised the kid had been keeping up with the conversation at all.

Neither brother heard him. They were too caught up in their own devices, so Adam shot him a reassuring smile from across the table. Matthew grinned back, his pure smile melting in Adam’s heart like sunlight.

“Tell me you’ll at least consider going back to school.” Declan said.

“You have some great fucking nerve requesting things of me after the crap you pulled.” Ronan replied, his words stiff.

Just when Adam didn’t think he could take any more of this, Declan’s phone began to ring.

The strain dissolved as Ronan leaned back in his chair, stretching his long legs out underneath him and making the chair squeal under his weight whilst Declan dove to answer the phone, clearly refreshed to have something to focus on other than Ronan’s accusatory stare and tsunami temperament.

“Ash,” Declan said, sounding delighted as a smile rippled the frown lines on his face.

Ronan elbowed Adam in the ribs. “Ashley. That’s Romeo’s latest conquest. Right on fucking time, too.”

Adam turned to Ronan, whose expression had returned to a neutral haze. Now that his fury had been diffused, he seemed irritable and eager to get this over with. He went back to gossiping with his little brother, who was more than happy to indulge him.

Part of Adam was pissed at the way Ronan had been treating him all day despite the fact that all he was trying to do was help, the other part understood the strain brought on by a jumbled wreck of emotions. 

By the time Declan cut the phone, Ronan had already called for the bill, probably skipping dessert to keep from having to spend another uncomfortable minute in Declan’s presence.

“You’re leaving already?” he asked, looking startled.

“Adam’s got a hot date.” Ronan said.

Declan narrowed his eyes at Adam, and Adam briefly considered shoving Ronan’s head into a plateful of spaghetti.

“More like an appointment,” he quickly abated. “Uni stuff.”

“Tick tock, tick tock.” Ronan grinned, darkly.

Declan just shook his head and rubbed at his temple. “Will you at least think about what I said?”

Instead of answering, Ronan shot out of the chair before bowing theatrically. “Now, as the virtuous potheads often say, ‘peace out bitches’.”

“Classy, Ronan.” Declan muttered.

Ronan took a minute to say his goodbyes to Matthew, and after twice promising that they would see each other again soon, he turned on his heel and strode out of the restaurant, without even waiting for the bill to arrive, obviously expecting Adam to follow, but Adam turned to Declan. “I’m in no position to be bartering advice, but your problem might be that you give up too easily. You need to reevaluate your approach. Ronan isn’t stupid, you don’t believe in him and he knows it.”

Declan looked offended. “If I’d given up on him I wouldn’t have paid for your services.”

Adam shrugged. “You gave up on him a long time ago, everything that’s come after has just been to compensate for that.”

Declan gaped, Adam smiled. “Thank you for lunch.”

With that, Adam turned on his heel and followed Ronan out the restaurant.

* * *

Early evening had brought an onslaught of dazed light pink, white clouds and the sun warmed the parking lot, heating the tops of cars and the top of Adam's head. 

"Thanks a lot," Ronan started, and before Adam could even delude himself into assuming he was actually being sincere, he added. "For signing me up for that shit show."

Adam had to bite down on his tongue. "You know, there's this wild phenomenon called gratitude. You should learn to show it sometimes, or at least _pretend_ to show it, so that everyone doesn't end up hating you."

"You think I care what anyone thinks of me?" he asked, raising his eyebrows in a silent challenge, walking backwards to face Adam as he made long backwards strides towards his BMW like he had eyes at the back of his head. 

"No, and I wish I had that particular ability of yours, but maybe you should show a little heed once and awhile." 

"A waste," Ronan replied, shrugging him off. When he turned on his heel again, his expression had gone sour. "Now, Parrish, if you don't mind. Not that this attached-at-the-hip schtick hasn't been delightful, I'd like to ride solo for sometime."

"Sure," Adam said, as they approached the car and Ronan sifted through his pockets for his keys. "After you answer my questions."

Ronan paused and tilted his head to look him dead in the eye. "Does this look like a fucking game show? I'm not required to say squat."

"Why did you get so worked up when Declan mentioned your father's business?" He pushed.

"Fuck off." 

"Wrong answer." 

"Fuck off times two." Ronan snarled.

"Just talk to me and I'll leave you alone for the rest of the day, I promise. I can understand you need space, and quite frankly, I'd like some too." Adam offered.

Ronan considered this before groaning and leaning against the hood of his car, crossing his arms over his chest as he stared up at the empty sky. A couple of birds zigzagged gallantly across the clouds just then, dark fluttery paint blots against a palette of pastels. 

"I am a Greywaren," he muttered, a gritty, almost theatrical voice. "Like my father before me."

The Star Wars reference seemed to diffuse the weight of the confession. "So it is genetic." Adam muttered, with an appreciative nod. 

"We didn't all catch the bug." 

"So Declan..." Adam started.

"Was jealous for a long ass time. Fucking naive if you ask me, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who ended up getting the short end of the stick." Ronan finished. 

Adam nodded, but unfortunately, jealousy was an emotion he knew all too well. It kept him up at night and bit at his veins. He understood what it must've been like for Declan to grow up in a house full of seemingly fantastical creatures. Hell, if Adam had been in his position, he'd be bitter too. Except, it was obvious the man was trying.

He'd given up being bitter, and was only desperate to help, to comprehend his brother's whimsical war path.

Sometimes, Adam didn't understand why most people never seemed to get that some paths are best tread alone.

What Declan should be doing is standing by on the sidelines and being supportive rather than attempting to infiltrate Ronan's ongoings. Then again, who liked being a sidekick? No wonder Declan felt like an outcast. He was practically a bull in a china shop. Someone simple and unremarkable, surrounded by dreamers and dreams. The odd man out. 

"It couldn't have been easy for him, you know. To be the only ordinary one in a family inclined to magic." Adam explained.

Ronan frowned in that way that looked more like a scowl than a sadness. "It's not magic," 

"Of course you don't think so." 

"Give me one reason I should think so."

"I could give you a hundred and it wouldn't be enough. You bring dreams to life. You carve them out of your imagination. You could make whole entire worlds."

"I'm not sure you'd be able to handle a world where I was king." Ronan muttered, almost wryly. 

"Well, it's a magical notion nonetheless. Science betrays me when it comes to you. Everything you are is a disobediance to nature." 

 _"Magic,"_ Ronan snapped, scathingly. "You sound like a fourteen year old girl." 

Adam continued like he hadn't heard his skeptical remark. "And let's admit it. You can be... Pretty overwhelming sometimes." 

All of Ronan's features twisted to accommodate an amused smile that complimented the way his eyes caught in the sunlight. Reflecting specs of gold into the drowning blues. "You think so?"

They were standing close enough that their thighs brushed, and in the still heat of the evening, everything was gold-plated and bold. Ronan a dark, brilliant weight by his side, as steadying as he was dizzying.

Adam watched him do his deep smoker's inhale again, watched his smooth throat and the sharp jut of his Adam's apple as he exhaled. 

Adam looked away then, nodded and cleared his throat. "I still don't get it," he said. "What does this have to do with your father's business?"

Ronan's smile turned from coy to grim. "Everything, man." Instead of bothering to elaborate, he began to turn away. "Story time's over."

This time, Adam didn't push. He had to work with baby steps. Ask for a finger before he grabbed a hand. The smaller the triumphs, the larger the victories felt. So he just sighed and slid into the passenger seat as Ronan whirred the engines to life.

Adam understood the weight old haunts could hold. So he said nothing when Ronan pulled over at a gas station and excused himself for fifteen whole minutes, returning with a six-pack of beer and his eyes rimmed slightly red. Adam wasn't going to allow him to drink any of it of course, his withdrawal symptoms had abated since, but they were still present and probably would be for awhile.

He felt the need and the sentiment, though. How easy it seemed to wash it all away with a few languid gulps and close yourself off to feeling. His father's favorite past time.  

He said nothing as Ronan circled the perimeters of a dark, fenced property that looked like it'd been boarded up for awhile now, which Adam was assuming was his family home. When he'd finally dropped him off, Adam made good on his promise and left him alone. He'd long since cut back on the drug tests and Ronan clearly needed the space to clear his head. 

As Adam watched Ronan close himself up like his limbs had become prisons, he wondered what it would be like to have a family who was willing to go that far to protect him. Declan was trying his damned hardest, and Ronan would both kill and die for his younger brother.

Matthew and Ronan had talked about lazy afternoons cloud gazing and chasing fireflies on late spring evenings and spending rainy days at home, the scent of Aurora's fresh baked brownies wafting from the kitchen and Niall out back of the barn teaching his sons how to feed the cattle.

It was as pleasant a picture as it was devastating, and Adam was left feeling nostalgic for a life he'd never had, for a family that wasn't his, and a boy who would never be quite the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i borrowed a couple lines from the books here, just little tip of the hats. :)  
> \- please leave me a comment and thank you so much for reading!


	13. The Low Places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to let you guys know that due to events that transpire in this chapter and future chapters, I've had to change the rating of the story to M. 
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNINGS: abuse, mental illness, blood, self-hatred.**

_A taste of you slipped into me like moonlight in a locked church. - Janet Lees_

* * *

As Adam figured, Ronan wasn’t in the mood to talk for the rest of the day, so Adam gave him his space. He caught up on some of his classwork in silence before skipping off for a couple hours to meet Blue.

When he came back home, it was about one in the morning and Ronan was blasting his death metal loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. He was stretched out on the couch, staring up at the ceiling with bleary eyes.

He had his arms tucked behind his head and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He must’ve been practising his dreaming because his bare chest was mottled in ruddy moss and there were what seemed to be little jagged vines of leaves wrapped securely around both of his wrists, which were scratched and reddened by exposure to the thorns. 

It was insane to think he’d come to a point in his life where he didn’t imagine this a peculiar sight. He was just relieved there was no blood this time.

Adam stopped just inches short of the couch and scowled down at the other boy. “Would it kill you to actually put on a shirt once and awhile?”

Ronan hummed an incoherent reply and Adam headed upstairs to his room to change out of his clothes and take a quick shower.

There was still some coursework he had left, due for Wednesday, he had a couple days to work on it but he wanted to get started on it regardless since he wasn’t feeling particularly sleepy despite how hollowed his bones felt from the stress of the entire day. He decided meeting Ronan Lynch had made his headaches an increasingly frequent occurrence.

He was on his way downstairs for a drink of water when his phone buzzed.

It was a text from Gansey.

_How is he doing?_

_Better_ . 

_Could you be more elaborate?_

_We had lunch with Declan and Matthew today._

_Oh my god, you must be a magician._

_I didn’t do anything. His incentive was Matthew._

_Still._

_Listen. Can I stop by tomorrow? I’d like to make things right after the way our discussion ended that night after the Oracle. I feel positively awful about it._

_Of course._ _  
_

_What time shall I come by?_

_Late afternoon-ish should be fine. I’ll be done with classes by then._

_Will Ronan be cool?_

_I’m sure he wants to see you._

_What if he doesn’t?_

_I’ll talk to him._

_Thank you, Adam._

_Of course._

_You’re a prince among men! :)_

_More like a man among princes,_ he thought to himself, as he sighed and spilled his phone back into his pocket. Ronan hadn’t moved an inch and was still glued to the same exact spot on the couch. Sometimes, Adam didn’t comprehend how he could sit so incredibly still at times and then become this frenetic whirlwind at others.

“What exactly are you doing?” Adam asked, as he filled himself a glass of water and padded back out into the living room.

When Ronan didn’t respond, Adam pressed, with a teasing smirk. “Are you actually dreaming without your cuddle buddy?”

Ronan snarled at that, his eyes were closed. “Parrish,” he said. “Get out of my face.”

Adam frowned. “How do you know I’m _in_ your face?”

“I have a fucking third eye and I can _feel_ you staring at me.”

“There’s nothing much to look at anyway,” Adam replied noncommittally, his cheeks burning as he gulped down his cup and set it down on the glass table. “And you look like a lawn that needs to be mowed. Take a damn shower.”  
  
He still felt the need to ask about that kiss. He knew it probably meant nothing, Ronan was making it very clear that it meant nothing, but it wasn’t going to stop bothering him until he got an explanation out of him. So he took a deep breath and coerced the words out.

“Ronan,” he said. “About that uh… About that kiss -”

Ronan opened one eye at that. “It won’t happen again.” He muttered stiffly.

“So it was a mistake then?” Adam asked, carefully. For some reason, his heart was jackrabbiting in his chest.

“Ja,” Ronan said, before closing his eyes again.

“Okay.”

Adam turned to go back upstairs, he still had coursework to complete, but then he halted. “I’m proud of you,” he muttered, even knowing he was going to regret the words.

“Shut up.” Ronan said.

“Really. You were… more or less subdued at lunch today. Even if you almost broke a plate.”

“I was pretending it was Declan’s face,” Ronan replied, feigning glee.

“Matthew really brings out the human in you.”

When Ronan didn’t reply, Adam sat down on the couch besides his. “Is Declan sending you back to school again?” Ronan scoffed resentfully. “He wishes.”

“I think you should go.”

Again, no response.

“Are you going to explain the connection between your father’s business and him being a dreamer?”

“No,” Ronan said, voice dangerously resigned.

“No?”

“I said no. I’m not having this discussion with you.”

“You never want to have any kind of discussion with me.”

“True. So why don’t you fuck off to wherever it is you fuck off to and leave me the hell alone.”

“Not this charade again,” Adam snapped, his own voice unhinged. “You know the reason why.”

Ronan opened his eyes now and sat up, pressing the heels of his feet hard enough into the carpet that it was probably stinging his skin. “No, you’re right. I _do_ know the reason why. Money.”

Adam actually shot off the couch and wheeled back with the sheer blunt force of that accusation. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t fuck with me, man. You don’t give a shit about me. You’re here because my brother is paying you a fuckton of hard cash to be here.”

Adam’s heart was a fork of lightning in his chest, his muscles felt like they’d been struck.

It wasn’t even the insinuation in his words, it wasn’t even the fact that he’d questioned his integrity time upon time and gotten away with it, what hit him the most was that he’d tried, he’d truly _tried_. Given Ronan everything he’d got just like he did his schoolwork, his career.

He’d risked his whole future for him. He’d taken care of him when he’d been sick to his stomach and puking his lungs out. He’d held on even when every nerve in his body, every bone, every instinct in him was telling him to run. Even when he lashed out at him for no viable reason. Even when things got ugly. Even when he said he wanted to send a man, that as far as Adam knew, could be innocent - to jail for a crime that Adam had nothing to even do with.

He’d finally pinned down why he hadn’t been able to get Ronan’s kiss out of his head and it wasn’t because he was a boy or because he’d been shocked or disgusted.

It hurt because Ronan had kissed him like the world had been resized to the shape of Adam’s lips. It hurt because the breaths caught between their mouths had felt like salve on every scrape, cut, bruise he’d ever endured. It hurt because that night, Ronan had made Adam feel something other than contempt, envy or fear. It hurt because maybe he’d let himself care for Ronan in a way that wasn’t required in the job description.

It hurt because Ronan had looked into his eyes like he saw something in Adam that Adam didn’t see in himself. That he was worth kissing, that he was worth investing in, that he was worth a crush.

Maybe it had all just been an elegant deception.

Adam was shook so speechless that he’d tuned Ronan’s vicious curses out. He tuned himself back in and Ronan was still going, words flying from his mouth like stonehard bullets, hitting right where it would inflict the most pain. Crafted to torture. 

"This isn’t a halfway house and you aren’t a saggy old nun. I’m just a statistic on your payroll.” He snapped.  
  
Adam looked into his eyes, brimming blue and opalescent. There was an almost watery feel to them in the murky bulb lighting. His mouth was a hard line, a landslide in the making.

Adam’s stomach had turned to sore mush. He actually felt like he could throw up with the cornucopia of indignance he was now feeling weighing on his insides and just like that, Adam finally broke.  
  
“After everything I’ve done,” he couldn’t keep the quaver out of his voice. “That’s really what you think of me?”

Ronan said nothing. His expression gave way to nothing. He was an impenetrable specter.

Behind Adam’s ribcage burned a pure molten anger, one that threatened to have him crumble to ashes. Perhaps this was how people spontaneously combusted. It had nothing to do with science and everything to do with a swallowing, dark uncontainable rage.

 _“You know what?”_ Adam began. “You’re an ungrateful, manipulative and self-destructive asshole. I tried to help you, but I know better than most that some people just can’t be helped. You want to explode? Go ahead and do it. I’m not going to be the one scraping your guts off the walls. I’m not going to be the one to stand around and become your collateral. I won’t be dragged down with you. I have better things to do with my life.”

He let out a deep breath, and continued.

Ronan’s eyes were pinned to him intensely, but for once, he was immune to the spell. For once, he didn’t falter.

“So fuck you and fuck your arrogance! You think you’re the only person in the world to have suffered? Well wake up and smell the goddamn stench of reality! You once said that Gansey forgets that the world still revolves around the sun. Well, I think you want the world to revolve around you! Shit happens, Ronan. People get hurt, people die. You lose some. It sucks. You cry about it, you get pissed about it. You let yourself wallow awhile. But then - then, you get the fuck back up and you move on.  
  
You realize, the sun still rises, the world isn’t over, and you might still have people who are there for you. There’s two choices for everyone. Give up or grow up. And if at this point I can’t get through to you, then I’m sorry, but you might as well do the former! Enough is enough. I’ve had enough of your bullshit. Tolerated enough of your taunts and insults. I’ve been made to feel like a fool enough times in my life, and I won’t be dragged back down to all those low places I’ve managed to lift myself out of by the likes of someone as selfish and hateful as you!” He admonished, his breath hitching in his chest as it heaved with an anger that was sour as fresh blood and just as likely to wound him.

He fell quiet then, breathing heavily. Ronan was still unresponsive. The anger fizzled out a little.

He couldn’t waste any more of his energy on this dead-end.

“You win, Ronan.” Adam finally said, his voice like rotting sap.

Ronan just stared at him like he was an actor who’d been following a script for so long and had forgotten the lines.

“I gave you my best shot. I really did, but congratulations. You finally proved me wrong. Maybe you are the asshole I thought you were only pretending to be. Maybe you’re fucking incapable of empathy. Or maybe I did something wrong. Maybe it was me. My. Fault. I should have hopped off your crazy train the second you told me you wanted to commit another crime. I should have… I should have -” his throat felt like overcooked meat.

He couldn’t get the words out any longer, not through this devastating ache in his chest, not through all the breaths he wasn’t breathing.

He knew he sounded as if someone’s foot was pressing into his throat. He knew Ronan probably didn’t notice. He was torn between stomping away and clocking Ronan so hard in the jaw that he doubled backwards and stayed down for a good five minutes.

There was a voice of reason floating somewhere around the back of his head, but he couldn’t quite reach it through the trumpet noise of all those vicious barbs clogging his brain in a haunting melody of unending menace. Adam’s anger was a torrential, all-encompassing thing.

He felt like he’d been shot everywhere, the blood all rushing out of him in cold bursts.

“Your brother can keep his money. Do with Greenmantle as you see fit. It’s not my business anymore. I’m gone.” He growled, his heart heavy as a battering ram in his chest.

Ronan’s voice was flat as a frozen lake. “You’re giving up on me.”

“It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Adam roared, before the dismay leaked out in an exasperated sigh.

“There’s only so much one person can tolerate, Ronan,” he said. “Only so much attitude. Only so many hurtful words. You’ve been making me feel like a fucking idiot ever since I got here when all I’ve been trying to do is help.”

He took a breath. “But _you_. You’ve proven to me that you’re beyond help.”

Adam waited a minute, then two and… Nothing. He was a dormant volcano.

Adam lolled his head back in exhaustion, he’d had enough. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. I thought… I -” but he couldn’t get out the words. He’d thought… what? He’d thought he’d somehow make a difference when even somebody like Gansey hadn’t been able to pierce Ronan’s thick, untrodden shell?  

Some people were just incapable of change. Adam should have known. He, out of all people, should have known better.

He’d been foolish to waste so much of his time on somebody else, to give everything he had to the wrong cause when he had an ample of his own problems to worry about, his own goals to accomplish. He’d gotten carried away, swept up in some mechanical dream.

Maybe he wasn’t meant for any of this, maybe men like his father would keep being born and would keep reproducing and terrorizing their children, maybe there was nothing Adam could do to exterminate what was inbred in an animal’s nature. Maybe it was high time he just called quits on this sober companion thing entirely and poured all of his focus, his drive, his energy back into himself.

It wasn’t Adam’s job to make this world a better place or whatever anyway.

He was nothing, just a pathetic boy who thought he could bridge the gap between cold, dead hearts and hopeful, beating ones.

If he kept letting himself get distracted like this then he’d come all this way for nothing and his father would have been right all along.

He would always be a good-for-nothing dimwit from a desolate little town who could never get away from his own shadow for long enough to pull himself up and build the prosperous future he so desperately wanted.  
  
His dreams would stay dreams and his father would have the satisfaction of watching him slither right back to where he started, to that horrible place where hope was nothing but a warm myth.

Sometimes Adam worried that only in death would he be able to truly get away from his father.

All the marks he’d left on him were beginning to grow barbs as Adam was left to bleed in a darkened mess of his own creation.

Adam thought he had a lot of weaknesses, but his worst weakness was this inherit hope inside him that propelled him to believe in the people he thought he cared about. He still couldn’t quite remember the day he’d given up on his father, the day he’d truly come face to face with the volatile reality of the monster that had brought him into the world.

Before that, he kept trying to come up with explanations for the man’s rotten attitude, for the punches and the loathing comments. He tried to close his mouth more, he tried to make himself smaller, insignificant as a termite. He tried not to breathe in his father’s direction in fear of inconveniencing him.

Those nights, he’d dream of becoming an invisible being, a star hovering in the sky, all-seeing and numb to human woes. Then the dream would change and he’d try to picture his father as a gentle, loving man who brought him a bunch of gifts on Christmas and hugged him tight when he came home from school and taught him how to fish like a normal parent.

This faceless father was not Robert Parrish, but he was everything Adam wanted Robert to be.

Soon enough though, Adam realized he was nothing but a delusional fever dream and snuffed him out forever.

It could’ve been the day he heard his father calling him his biggest regret, so matter-of-factly that even Adam believed it must be true, or the first night he’d felt his father’s fist in his mouth, salty knuckles digging into his baby teeth. Was this how children were tucked into sleep?

Maybe it was a new parenting technique, to teach him what the real world would be like.

Of course, whenever he’d tried to fight back, he’d ended up so bruised he couldn’t show his face at school for days after.

Sometimes, his mother would step in. Only on nights when it got real bad, or Adam set him off just by flinching or staring for too long or standing the wrong way or existing the wrong way.  
  
“Robert,” he didn’t understand how her voice could manage to be so soft and placid when the terror in her eyes was the only thing that kept Adam from crumbling, the only thing that he knew to be true. “Robert, please. Stop. You’re killing him.”

Those were the times Adam had been convinced his mother was his guardian angel. He knew better now. That stupid, gullible child didn’t know any better and if Adam could encounter him now, he would smack him himself for his absolute lack of self-respect.

Now he knew his mother was no angel, she wasn’t a co-conspirator either. She was something even more disgusting. She was an idle observer, she sat back and watched the world spin around her like a disillusioned doll with no sentience of her own.

According to her, Adam was a silly child who couldn’t resist riling his father and getting into trouble, the blood on his shirt an inconvenience. _Those stains are going to be so difficult to scrub out, even with the strongest laundry detergent._

It wasn’t that she was soulless, Adam believed she did love him. Somewhere deep inside her, she knew what was happening was wrong, but she was also lazy and afraid and had convinced herself that there was nothing she could do. She was also depressed and broken and she'd given up the fight. 

She liked to play the victim and it was what Adam despised about her the most. No matter where he ended up in life, no matter how down in the dupes he was, he never, ever made himself the victim. Instead, he turned into the instigator, and let his mindless survival instincts drive him.

 _Calculate the distance from A to B. Get from A to B. Never return to A._ He’d had to break his life down into a simple equation to keep sturdy and for the most part, it worked like a charm.

Formulas he could understand, it was people that were complicated and often impossible to solve.

Sometimes Adam really did hate his mother more than he hated his father. _You could’ve done something. You could’ve taken me and ran away. You could’ve stopped him. Why didn’t you stop him?_

There was no point dwelling over his broken past.

The memories sloshed inside his stomach like sinking ships, his mind burned everytime he made it back to that awful little trailer but then he opened his eyes, took a deep breath, registered his surroundings, his newfangled, parentless surroundings and a little bit of the acid fog in his lungs cleared and he managed to move his feet without falling face first into the dirt.

Slowly, but surely, he was making it further and further away from that wretched nightmare some people would call a childhood.  
  
He met Ronan’s seemingly impassive eyes one more time before viciously turning on his heel and stomping upstairs.

He paced the length of his room for a few minutes before making up his mind and shovelling a bunch of his clothes back into the small suitcase he’d brought along with him.

He was leaving. He was leaving this instant.

To hell with Ronan Lynch and his wayward world.

Blue had been right all along. Vultures thought everything was a game, they revelled in nipping and playing with their prey before the meal. Adam wasn’t going to stick around for long enough to get swallowed whole.

He knew he was going to mourn the money, but there were other ways. The earnings were no longer worth the keep.

He would find a way to explain himself to Declan, he would delete Gansey’s number, he would put this all behind him and still find a way to get where he needed to be.

There were multiple ways to the top and Adam was determined to weasel his way through every single one if it meant even a glance at success.

Adam’s mind was a fumbling motor of darting thoughts when he heard the door creaking behind him.

Ronan was leaning against the door jamb with a turbulent and indistinguishable expression gracing his face. He’d put a shirt back on. Adam said nothing to him.

He was out of breath just thinking about another intense argument breaking out. Whatever fuse he’d lit inside himself to keep from burning away these past few weeks had been extinguished and what remained was merely a cold, hollow shadow that chilled him down to the very bone.

Adam half-turned after that, only because Ronan wasn’t going away. He tiredly dragged his stare to meet the other boy’s eyes and then Ronan was crossing the threshold and sauntering towards him, his hands fisted at his sides.

Every nerve inside Adam’s body tensed for a fight and his heart began to pound a sick, stuttering drumbeat in his chest.

 _I won’t let him hurt me. I’ll fight if I have to. Even if it's against my principals. Even if he’s stronger and angrier and…_ Suddenly all coherent thought trickled speedily away from him like devoured by river rapids as Adam realized he’d unconsciously backed himself into a wall in an instinctive attempt to get away.

Then he could feel cold fingers clutching tightly onto the nape of his neck, sending shivers down his body like a slow-spreading storm.

Ronan’s expression was a hollowing thing. He was only an inch or two taller than Adam, but he still seemed to be able to look down on him.

Only then... his expression changed, his eyes softened, something almost rapacious filled his features and then _Ronan was kissing him._

Adam wanted to shove him away, but in that outlandish, fervid moment he couldn’t quite command his body to do anything. The warmth inside him was a hungry fire dissolving all rational thought.

“Tell me to stop,” Ronan’s voice was a brittle blur, or perhaps that was the static that was slowly puncturing his veins. “And I’ll stop.”

Adam would’ve told him to stop but all he could think in the rush of the moment was of the suggestion of skin on skin, the piercing gleam in Ronan’s fractured moon eyes, the certainty of his breath against his face and all else dissolved.

The world becoming a blip in an orbit that consisted of only the two of them and their bonfire mouths.

Ronan’s fingers found their way into his hair and he tugged harshly, Adam’s body was eager to obey as he brought his own hands up to clutch the sides of Ronan’s face as his tongue slid into his mouth, rough and demanding.

It was more of some kind of angry struggle than it was kisses.

He felt a familiar tightening under his navel and the pressure with which Ronan was kissing him only made everything inside him clench harder, hotter, until Adam could see nothing but white flashing lights behind his lidded eyes.

As one of Adam’s hands slid from Ronan’s cheek to his neck and he sucked on his tongue, Ronan responded by pulling harshly away, only to sink his teeth into Adam’s bottom lip.

Dim awareness blinkered somewhere at the back of his mind reminding him that he was pressed up against the boy whose name he’d been cursing only moments ago, but the slippery notion evaporated as soon as Ronan’s hand found its way under his shirt as he traced the raised, jagged scars cutting across Adam’s stomach. Adam moaned against Ronan’s mouth and kissed him harder; his pulse dancing frantically in his veins.

Then he pressed a hand into Ronan’s chest and shoved angrily, stepping away from the wall only to turn around and haul Ronan up against it. Trading places. He was unsure of what brought on this sudden surge of aggravation, but his belly clenched hotly at the thought of having thrown Ronan into his position and their kisses deepened.

One of Adam’s hands still pressed into Ronan’s shirt, whose heartbeat rapidly lapped through the thin material of his t-shirt against Adam’s palm and the other now gripped his jaw as Ronan wrapped his fingers around Adam’s wrist and pressed each of Adam’s fingers to his mouth one after the other before bringing their mouths together again.  
  
“Don’t go,” Ronan hissed into Adam’s mouth. It was almost a prayer whispered under breath.

“What is this,” the words came out more as a sigh than anything else as Adam let out a sharp breath because Ronan was dragging his nails down Adam’s chest beneath his shirt. He could feel the other boy’s erection against his thigh and his breath tasted like cloves and coffee as he ripped his mouth away to plant kisses up one side of Adam’s neck. Adam shuddered beneath Ronan’s simmering touch, he thought he might dissolve next.

Soon enough, Adam was claiming domination again, pressing another heated kiss against Ronan’s mouth and down his chin all the way to his collarbone, his fingers twisted in the collar of Ronan’s shirt as the hand that had been lounging on his chest fell limply against his side.

They kissed even as their lips grew sore.

Ronan leaned forwards, yanked at his sleeve so that it gave way and bit into Adam’s bare shoulder, causing Adam’s knees to give out and his right foot to involuntarily spasm and kick against the armoire that sat inconviniently by his side. Pain shot up his leg as it hit the fine wood and the whole armoire shook, causing a couple of books that’d been neatly stacked on top to topple to the ground.

Neither of them paid it any heed though as Adam let his teeth graze Ronan’s earlobe and led a hot, runny trail of kisses down from there.

The next thing he knew Ronan was letting his fingers linger beneath Adam’s navel before slipping into the waistband of his pants. Adam felt his stomach shrink, but then he was slipping his fingers into Ronan’s and tugging, bringing Ronan’s hands back up to his face.

Despite the desire that had possessed his body like an unwelcome ghost, despite the undeniable surge of heat radiating between them and the need that was painfully throbbing inside him, he gave Ronan’s lips one last, firm, almost vengeful kiss before withdrawing completely.

They were both wildly out of breath, Adam watched Ronan’s chest heave and for a few fuzzy seconds the entire world reduced to the awe in their eyes and the sounds of their attuned breathing.

What was that? A dozen missiles of kisses in rapid succession? A mental break down? A reason for Adam to stay?

Adam had no answers for the question that was his own body, how it had responded to that, how he’d wanted to kiss Ronan Lynch until both their mouths turned to ashes.

It was a new feeling, a dangerous, scary feeling.

He knew of all the options in the world, Ronan Lynch was the most difficult version of any of them.

He knew that Ronan was not a thing to be experimented with. He knew his mouth still felt warm.

Ronan was the first to break the silence. “Don’t go,” he repeated, though his voice was still hoarse, then, _“what should I think?”_

“Huh?” Adam’s own voice sounded foreign, faraway. Like he’d become a whole new person entirely within a matter of minutes. His gaze fell guiltily to a couple of books lying facedown on the floor and then at the armoire sitting askew, like its entire position had been shifted.

“What do you think I should think?” Ronan repeated with more urgency, still not bothering to further explain.

_After everything, that is what you think of me?_

It took Adam a moment to understand that he was referring to the statement Adam made before stomping out, but he somehow couldn’t capture the right words and get them out.

“I…” Adam had to stop this untamed flickering in his nerves, he had to get a grip on his mind.

He looked at Ronan again. He was still breathing hard and his appearance suggested that despite his words, he was feeling equally scatterbrained. His lips were swollen and bitten red as pomegranate skin, the hem of his shirt had ridden up a little and there was a drunken, almost dreamy enchantment in the merciless blue of his eyes.

Adam could still feel the pressure of Ronan’s fingers dipped into his hair, gripping mindlessly, and he didn’t have to peel his sleeve back and look down at his shoulder to know Ronan had left a bruise.

He’d hated bruises, his body, at this point was marked like the world’s unluckiest canvas, and yet somehow, this felt different, not like a marring of the skin but like the evidence of his tethers to the world. Proof that he was wanted; even needed.

He took a deep breath and let it out before raking a quick hand through his disheveled hair. Ronan had pulled so hard at his scalp that it hurt his head when he ran his hand over it.

“Fuck, Ronan,” Adam managed. “You can’t just…. _kiss_ away a problem.”

When Ronan just arched an eyebrow, he sighed. “I meant that I somehow, unprofessionally and ridiculously began to care about you. If you think you’re so smart, then I think you should have figured that out.” He softly admitted.  
  
“Your turn,” he added, quickly. “Why did you kiss me?”

Ronan’s expression was steel once again. “Why did _you_ kiss  _me?_ ”

“Ronan,”  

He shrugged. “Maybe I want you.”  
  
“Maybe you don’t,” Adam’s reply was dry. For some reason, he felt like his soul had left his body, as if he was watching himself from a calculable distance, unable to control or predict the move he would make next, unable to do anything about the fever that had become his skin.

“You could have pushed me away,” Ronan’s voice was careful, as if they were drawing arms.

“I could have.” Adam agreed.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t. His mind was still pretty much a bright, thoughtless haze, which Adam had thought quite impossible for somebody who spent every waking minute overthinking everything.

“Is this another game?” he asked.

Ronan’s jaw actually dropped a little at that. “You really are one spectacular kind of stupid, aren’t you?” Adam felt the bitterness in his voice had lost heat.

“Are you really surprised I have to ask such things at this point?”

It was after all, a consequence of his behavior in the past.

Ronan leaned away from the wall, straightened his t-shirt and looked away. “No,” he admitted, in a low, low voice that, had they been standing outside, Adam could’ve confused for the wind.

It was surprising to say the least, he wasn’t used to admittance without hesitance or admonition from Ronan, but he recaptured the other boy’s gaze. “I still expect an apology if you want me to stick around.” He said, rolling his shoulders to stand up straighter despite the melty-feel of his legs.

Ronan scoffed at that, but when Adam merely shot him an expectant brow, he sighed loudly, like this was the most embarrassing thing he’d ever been asked to do and nodded. “I’m sorry,” the words were out like bloodsplatter, quick to be over with and then he was stomping off like the trail blaze that he was, eager to be free, either of this conversation or of Adam.

Adam wondered if Ronan could still feel Adam’s heartbeat echoing in his chest, because Adam felt closer to Ronan than he had in weeks and he wasn’t sure what to do with that. About this abrupt and highly unprecedented cosmic shift in the nature of their relationship, about whether or not he still believed everything he’d convinced himself of merely moments before Ronan had gone ahead and derailed his every thought.

About how restless he felt, like he didn’t know whether this churning, scalding, consuming feeling behind his ribs had been rage, desire or a fatal mix of both.

He caught a hold of Ronan’s arm as he was on his way out, and Ronan wrenched it free. “I don’t want to talk, Parrish.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Then don’t talk. Just… Listen,” Ronan stilled, which Adam took as a victory as he continued. “I… I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. When I initially took up this job, I never, not even in my wildest dreams, imagined… And the way that I’ve been raised… this - whatever it is, it’s not an easy concept for me… And we can’t forget that you are my client first and foremost and I … I sound like a blithering idiot, don’t I?”

Ronan tugged at his lower lip to veil a grin. “At least he’s self-aware,” he muttered, sarcastically.

Adam bit down on his own lip and sighed. Ronan just shot him a pointed look. “Can I go now or am I going to have to kiss you into shutting up again?”

Adam couldn’t find it in him to respond to a comment like that so he let him go.

Later, just as he was heading for bed, Adam could hear Ronan shuffling around in the kitchen, gulping down an energy drink like a thirsty sailor.

“Hey,” he said, Ronan half-turned and gave him an acknowledging nod.

“Does this change things?”

“Does what change things?” Ronan asked, playing clueless. In the dark kitchen, lit only by the refrigerator light, he looked like an incandescent ghost, half his features muted by hasty shadows.

“This does change things,” Adam decided, answering his own question.

He didn’t know who he was more mad at, Ronan or himself.

“I am your sober companion. You’re my client. We _kissed_.” He lingered on every phrase as if laying it on thick would make it any more tangible.

Ronan merely blinked at him, unimpressed. “I don’t have time for your existential crisis.”

“I’m not -” Adam bristled, fiddling for the right words to convey the marathon of discombobulation that was going on in his head and coming up empty. “We just, we have to make this right somehow. Make sure it doesn’t happen again or… Or I don’t know! I feel… _slimy_. Like what we’re doing is wrong and -” he cut off abruptly when he caught a glance of the grim tightness on Ronan’s face.

He looked blue, like all the air had escaped from the room, suffocating him. It was almost… hurt. Or at least something like hurt. Ronan’s version of hurt was lightning bolts and volcanic anger.

“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t mean - I’m not grossed out by _you_. Trust me. In fact… No, that’s not the point.” Adam silently decided that if he ever made it to the end of this conversation, he was going to kill himself. “I mean it like this was supposed to be a purely professional relationship and it doesn’t feel right to violate the terms of that.”

“You’re talking like there’s a dead fucking corpse lying in between us. The fuck do you expect from me?” Ronan asked, eyes ablaze now. Adam puffed out a frustrated breath. Talking things out never ever went the way he planned for them to go, especially where Ronan was involved.

“Forget it,” he snapped. “Forget I said anything.”

Ronan’s lips twisted in a sneer. “Gladly.” He said, before tossing the soda can into the bin behind him and stomping off, harshly shoving Adam from hip to shoulder on his way out.

Somehow, it still felt like a win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- i was listening to the song 'all i want' by dawn golden on repeat as i wrote the make-out scene.  
> \- this was such an intense, rollercoaster of a chapter, i am so sorry if any of you ended up frothing at the mouth or breaking into tears or screaming until your vocal chords gave out. i say this because i may or may not have reacted in all of the ways mentioned above while attempting to write this.  
> \- PLEASE DO LEAVE ME A COMMENT OR A FEW AS A REWARD FOR ALL THE SNAPPY UPDATES I'VE BEEN MAKING LATELY :)  
> \- and as usual, thank you so much for reading <3


	14. Little Expressionless Animals

_"I like to prowl ordinary places and taste the people - from a distance. I don't want them too near because that's when attrition starts." - Charles Bukowski_

* * *

Adam couldn't sleep that night.

He tossed and turned in bed as if it were crawling with bugs, exhaustion sat heavy on his shoulders, but sleep still felt a thousand yards away. He gave up trying to get sleep when his brain began to replay fervent kisses against hot skin. His chest felt like it'd been doused with lava, the notion stirring toxic. 

So he threw the blanket off himself and fetched his laptop to complete the thesis he'd been working on for class. There was no point lying around in bed, staring up at the ceiling and allowing his thoughts to dissolve him when there was work to be done. The thesis of course, wasn't due until the week after the next, but Adam often prided himself on being ahead of his deadlines.

Sitting there in the dark in front of the cordial and comforting glow of the laptop screen reminded him painfully of home. Being the best at school had always been incredibly important to him, it wasn't just that he'd always been academically inclined, but all the time he spent thinking about the civil war and sublimation theories and simultaneous equations was all the time he _wasn't_ spending thinking about how his life was shattering to a thousand bleeding pieces all around him.

That devout need for an above-average GPA became somewhat of an escape route, a security blanket, it became a tool of evasion and an eventual doorway to a life outside of his hometown hell. So he traded sleep for studies and a social life for dreams of a future where he could look his father in the eye and prove to him that he was wrong, that Adam was not a mistake of a human being, that Adam was at the top of his class, that he was good, that he was good. Good at _something_.

In hindsight, it might've just been a misguided attempt at getting his father's attention, at getting a hateful man to quit his hateful ways and see the light.

All he'd wanted back then was one encouraging pat on the back, one smile brimming with pride, one word of congratulations. Just a single sign that said: _I don't hate you, I'm sorry._

It might've also been because he'd spent so much of his life believing he was good for nothing, that he was a disappointment, that there was something wrong with him, internally.

Even with an internalized self-hatred, he'd began forgetting why he felt so strong a dislike for the face that greeted him in the mirror everyday. Was it because he truly was a useless wretch, or because he'd grown up being told that? Being blamed for being born.

There were nights he'd spend hearing his parents in the other room, the walls thin enough to pierce with a butter-knife. They'd war on about him, as if he were an atomic bomb about to be dropped on a country. Those nights, he would get furious.

_It wasn't like I chose this life. You don't want me as a son? Well, maybe I don't want you as a dad._

They'd been impish, spiteful thoughts, but they'd made him wonder. About his own potential. About his own skill.

Every A grade, every mastered AP class and conquered spelling bee had fed the hungry, vengeful beast inside of him. The beast that grew with every staggering accomplishment, like every spark of knowledge accumilated made his flames burn higher. Until one day, his fires would scald his father's horrid mouth, sew it shut with a scorching graze.

Adam's thoughts had wandered once again. He stared blearily at the laptop screen. He'd only managed to get in about four paragraphs before his brain began to bottom out again. He stared out the window at the street lights muting the moon's shine, at the dew-kissed sidewalks and the shapeless silhouettes of ghost-painted trees.

Maybe a walk would clear his head and trick his body into begging for rest. He shut down his laptop and padded out of his bedroom, quiet, as not to wake Ronan across the hall, and sauntered out the door.

The night sky was a blotted wreck of whining purples and inky blacks, few stars blinked overhead in a drowsy haze and the headlights of a passerby car blinded him momentarily. The air felt warm, almost wet, teary with an approaching dawn. Adam walked the neighborhood streets with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, his thoughts in motion with his footsteps. 

His ribs crumbled everytime he thought about Ronan.

He wasn't sure the kissing changed anything.

He'd received a half-hearted apology, but it hadn't felt like enough. 

Even though there was something intriguing about the fact that Ronan, who'd spent all the weeks leading up to this one practically pestering him to leave, now wanted him to stay. But was that enough? Even though he recognized now, how harsh he'd been when he'd snapped, and that sober companions were not meant to lose their tempers in the way that he had, he thought his reasons to be mad had been justified.

Ronan didn't have the right to treat him in the way that he had. Nobody did.

He'd been an asshole, he'd been unfair. 

Ronan had wanted something real from him, and he'd given it to him, but then, the truth had been too harsh a pill for him to swallow, ironic for a creature so embedded in truths.

Adam watched a hovering wreath of blinkering insects buzz around a street lamp and he could almost taste the desperation in the words that'd been uttered like pleas into his mouth. _"Don't go,"_ eyelashes tickling his face, lips rough with friction, his pulse leaping in his veins.

It felt like it had been an ignorant and irrational tactic to avoid the crux of their problems now.  

Stay was a wish, stay was a song, stay was something he'd been hoping to hear - _but was it an answer?_

He'd said nothing. As Adam went off like a bracelet of bombs, he'd said nothing. Just stood there with a nonchalance that could've given his lifeless mother a run for her money.

Was the kiss truly out of a reckless want or was it just to shut Adam up like he'd stated? Did he not think Adam deserved an explanation? A stubborn resolve curled up in his gut and remained there. He would not sleep until he got an answer. He would shake Ronan awake if he had to. He was done being treated like a child who could just be pacified. He was done being treated like an unwanted guest. He was just... done. 

His heart almost made it halfway up to his mouth when he snuck back into the house to find Ronan leaning against his couch in his muscle tee and sweats, his eyes strangely hypnotizing in the exploding dark, his mouth curled in an an expectant smirk.

"Where were you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "Joyride?" 

"I went for a walk," Adam said.

"A walk at 4.30 AM in the morning. What's that about, weirdo?" 

"Says the guy sitting in the dark of the hallway like a serial killer." Adam replied. "It's a good thing you're up though," he continued. "Because I was about to ambush you in your sleep."

Ronan arched an eyebrow. "Is that so?" 

Adam merely nodded. He wasn't going to let Ronan have the upper hand. Not again. He wasn't going to get intimidated. He wasn't going to let Ronan just maneuver his way out of this the way he deflected everything; a snake slithering out of every hole it managed to sink its skin into. 

He was going to get this out of his fucking system so that he could go the fuck to sleep. 

"Yes." He said, before coming up right in front of Ronan so that the tips of his shoes were almost touching Ronan's bare toes. Ronan stared up at him with a curious and yet irritated look plastered on his face. 

"Don't you think I deserve an explanation?" Adam asked.

"An explanation for what?"

"You can't just kiss me and expect to melt the thoughts all out of my head, Ronan. I still need you to talk to me." 

Ronan made a dismissive gesture. "Talking is for people who have something to say."

Adam blinked. "So you have nothing to say?"

"Correctamundo!" 

"Bullshit."

"What do you want to hear?" Ronan asked, his aggrevation piqued. 

"What are you willing to give me?" Adam asked.

Ronan looked like he was considering Adam's words, but then, it was like watching someone shutter the sunlight with a hefty tug at thick blinds. Ronan's expression shifted and his gaze dropped. "Cut the crap." He muttered. "Just be straight with me." 

"Okay. Are you willing to cooperate with me? Do you promise to stop treating me like shit? Did you truly mean that apology you gave me? Do you even see what you did wrong or were those words nothing but words to you?" 

"So many questions. Too bad my answers aren't free."

"You asked me to cut the crap."

"I didn't ask for a pop quiz." 

Adam felt something gnawing at the meagre plate of his patience. "For how long will you run from your problems?"

"For as long as I have feet."

"Ronan,"

Something weary as bones and grotesque seemed to settle behind his eyes, shadowy ashes, remnants of emotions with nothing but cold trails left to show.

Ronan took a step forward and wrapped a chilly hand around Adam's neck. Adam felt goosebumps chase their way up his spine, his skin aroused by a simple touch, lured like Ronan's skin had magnetic properties.

He kept his eyes deadly rapt on his. "All I do is cooperate with you. I treat you the way I treat everyone except you've proven you're not everyone and so dealing with you is different. I don't do half-assed words, if I say something, I mean it. Ergo, sincerity. Is there anything else? Do you want me to fill you a form? Write you a poem? Give you the permit to my fucking biography?"

Adam closed his eyes and sighed. Ronan smelled strangely like a forest, rusty leaves and wildflowers.

"I just want you to be you."

Ronan's voice was a hollowed out thing. "This is all that's left of me."

"And it's enough," Adam muttered, conviction staining his voice. "You know that, don't you?"

"It wasn't," Ronan's response was immediate and harsh as a burn. He pulled away and took a step backwards, his expression devastated in a way that reminded Adam of abandoned buildings and grey, cloud-caked skies. "It wasn't enough. Not for my brother. Not for Gansey. Not for... Not for _her_."

His voice sounded like a stuttering pause in an escaping wind through a dank alley.

Instantly, Adam knew that he was talking about Aurora Lynch, his mother.

"I'm sorry," Adam muttered. "About what happened to her? I really am. But how is it your fault?"

"How is it not?"

"I don't understand."

"There's this thing Kavinsky used to say, about how dying's a boring side effect. Her death. Or her... not quite death. It was a side effect. A side effect of my father's dreaming. A side effect that I should've been able to resolve." When Adam said nothing, Ronan kept going. "You know, I think Declan's still upset that he doesn't have my abilities. I'm pretty sure the bastard thinks I'm way too irresponsible to have so much power. He thinks I'll abuse it. That I already have. Thinks if he were in my place, he would've been able to revive her."

"Your father... Your father dreamed your mother? And when he died... She... She died too?" At this point, Adam supposed it made sense. Kill the maker and its creations cease to be as well.

"Asleep," he insisted. "She's _asleep_."

"Right."

"It's like a fairytale. Except this one doesn't get a happy fucking ending." 

"Ronan," Adam began. 

"Maybe I _am_ irresponsible. I don't deserve Gansey's tolerance, I don't deserve Declan's third, fourth and fifth chances. I don't deserve... you." 

Immediately, Ronan looked away, like he couldn't admit such a thing and look at him at the same time. Adam was shocked into stone-heavy silence. 

"Are you happy now?" he spat, resentfully. "Did you get the answer you wanted to hear?"

"This is not what I had in mind." He admitted, slowly.

"Oh?" Ronan said, cocking his head to the side. "Boo-fucking-hoo. I'm going to bed."

"Ronan,"

_"What?"_

"I used to think that way too, but I learned... Only recently, actually. That funnily enough, even though we enjoy making these articulate judgements about ourselves. _We_ don't get to decide what we do and don't deserve. Maybe... If we're getting something good, maybe we should just hold on to it without question. Maybe we never really know ourselves. Not when we spend most of our lives doubting ourselves. Maybe other people do see what we don't. That's why I get to have Blue. That's why you get to have Gansey. That's... That's why... We get to have each other."

Ronan stared at him. Quiet as a funeral, his lips pursed, his face silhouetted like the darkest side of the moon, brimstone in his gaze.

"Get some fucking sleep, Parrish," he said, before turning on his heel. "You don't know what you're talking about."

* * *

There were days Adam wondered why there wasn’t a hurricane named after Blue Sargent yet.

The girl was five feet of pure righteous fury with all the subtlety of a flash bomb and he loved her for it.

She was perhaps the only person he knew who hadn’t judged him for the grease-stained, crumpled clothes he wore. Or commented on his Henrietta accent or pitied him when she’d learned about his father’s abuse.

Adam had never intended to tell her in the first place, but he’d quietly and tentatively admitted everything to her one night when he’d received a taunting phone call from his father while she'd happened to be with him.

The phone call hadn’t been to ask how Adam was doing or whether his schooling had paid off, but to remind him of how he’d made a mistake and how there would be hell to pay if he ever showed his traitorous face in that town ever again.

The utter resolve in Robert’s gritty voice had almost been enough to convince Adam that he truly was going to fail. He’d added that Adam was selfish, that his mother lamented over him daily, that he should be ashamed of himself and that he was surely going to hell for treating his own parents like miscreants.

Adam had said nothing, he’d quietly listened to his father stress in excruciating detail all the different ways that he was a disappointment and then when he couldn’t take it anymore, he’d just cut the phone and terminated the connection.

His father didn’t ever call him again.

That night, despite the sorrow unfolding in his chest, he'd felt free of that hypothetical umbilical cord, of his father’s reverberating barks and his mother’s mute despondency. It was almost unbelievable how easy it was, now that he’d moved away, to get rid of their scathing and counterproductive presence.

When he’d cut that call he’d realized that there was a part of him that had killed that connection and evicted them from his heart a long time ago.

Now, with none of the fury, hurt or despair left to nip at his insides, he felt almost… forgiving. He didn’t want to forgive his parents because he thought they should have the benefit of the doubt. They didn’t deserve to be forgiven for being awful people, but he needed to forgive them for himself; in order to truly, completely let go.

Grudges were built on rage and regret, and Adam didn’t have space for such negative emotions, not in this brave new world he was trying to create for himself. He thought if he could bury the hatchet, perhaps he could bury those cold memories right along with it.

Blue had listened to him in silence and when he’d finished speaking, she'd broken into a temper fueled monologue about how parents like these were actually vermin and didn't deserve their children and how she wanted to find other loveless kids like Adam, band them all together and start a revolution, then she’d leaned close and wrapped him in a hug so tight Adam could feel the beat of her heart.

“You deserve to be loved. You know that don’t you? You big, naive string bean?” she’d said, and he’d smiled because for the first time in his life, he actually believed that.

It was also the first time in his life somebody had addressed him as a 'string bean'. 

Sometimes, her every word was a spitball.

Their fights could last days with neither of them willing to melt the frigid wall of ice that made up their respective egos enough to break first, and yet he’d always felt comforted by her unabashed honesty and her bland refusal to coddle him whenever he was feeling cheaper than that trailer park he grew up in.

Now, he shot her a withering look as she stood there with her nose upturned, her expression flammable and her spine suspiciously straight. Her eyes were practically a pair of skulls and crossbones as she stared them down from behind the coffee counter.

It was disconcerting that a girl with a multicolored maze of clips in her hair, in a pair of red-and-white striped overalls could manage to look as intimidating as she did.

Ronan was either going to love her or hate her.

Adam had taken him to Nino’s immediately after he’d found out that Ronan happened to be a fan of their famous freshly baked pizzas.

He’d left Nino’s as it always was, ageless and timeless. The chequered tiles reminded him of a polished chessboard, the fluorescents flickered every now and then like something out of an indie horror movie and the soft, discordant chatter of the diner guests was a drone-like buzz in his good ear.

They’d taken up post at the booth by the window, where light from the outside world trickled into the mirage of the liminal pocket dimension that was the cafe; somewhere reality seemed less tangible than everywhere else.  

Adam glanced at the boy sitting across from him, his buzzed head buried behind a glistening menu, his left hand fiddling idly with a salt-shaker.

He’d come dressed in tight, faded jeans and a black t-shirt that had multiple holes clawed through it, especially in the shoulder region, which was what Adam had guessed to be Chainsaw’s handiwork.

“Stop watching me, Parrish.”

Adam ignored that in favor of asking a question that had been playing at his lips for awhile. “In the picture on your file, you had dark curly hair. Why did you shave it off?”

Ronan didn’t look up from the menu. “I’ve been thinking about migrating to the Himalayas to live the cloistered life of an urban monk.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, if a monk ever had a conversation with you, he’d drop his monastic practices in favor of chewing all his skin off.”

“Or joining a Death Metal band,” Ronan grinned. “We could be called The Monk-Grels.”

“You could name your first single ‘Love in The Time of Monasteries.’”

Ronan barked approval before narrowing his eyes to aim and tossing a plane he’d made out of restaurant tissue at Adam’s chest. “Why?” he asked, putting all his effort in attempting to sound careless and partially succeeding.

Adam shrugged. “I liked your hair.”

Ronan snorted. “Like I give a shit what you like or don’t like, Parrish.”

Adam rolled his eyes once again. Ronan didn’t know that this was all a ploy to get him introduced to his best friend and now in hindsight, he was a little afraid of how Ronan might react when he did eventually manage to put the pieces together.

He was desperate to keep Blue, and she’d demanded to make Ronan’s acquaintance. Plus, he figured they needed to be in public when Adam showed Ronan what he’d come up with and broke the bad news like a bucket of ice water over his head.

Just in case Ronan was feeling particularly murdery and decided to go apeshit on Adam for even thinking of it.

Adam had taken the time to clear his head. He’d agonized over trying to find a way to talk to Ronan about the latest development in the Greenmantle plan. He had everything plotted out, but he wasn’t quite sure how to break it to Ronan considering it involved asking for assistance from a man that he’d landed in a hospital only months ago.

“I think the waitress has the hots for you,” Ronan said suddenly, bursting Adam out of his bubble.

He wasn’t surprised Ronan had caught Blue’s glare, he felt like the weight of it was nudging at his shoulders. If they’d been on a ship, she would’ve knocked him overboard with just a glance.

Adam mustered a weary smile and pressed a hand to the back of his neck. “That’s actually Blue Sargent, she’s a friend of mine.”

Ronan didn’t look at all surprised. “I see your Blue Sargent and raise you a Richard Gansey,”

Adam paled. “ _What?_ You invited him here? How did you even -”

“You lie about as good as I tapdance.” He replied, in a deadpan. “I figured there was an agenda behind this little dinner date.”

Adam just closed his eyes and shook his head. “This is going to be a disaster.”

Ronan shot him a wicked grin. “Gee Golly, Parrish! If only I’d known, maybe we wouldn’t be in such a pickle!”

“You don’t understand,” Adam started. “Too late!” Ronan said, a little too enthusiastically as he practically shot out of his seat to greet Gansey. “Apologies for my tardiness. Mother and Helen were having another chinaware crisis and I was caught up in playing mediator. It was decidedly dreadful. I need to learn to stay out of their business. ” He explained, smoothening out a crinkle in between his eyebrows.

“It’s cool, man. Adam was just telling me about how glad he was that I called you.” Ronan said, eyeing Adam tauntingly.

Adam wasn’t sure how Gansey hadn’t caught the gallons of sarcasm in those words but his face brightened like a bulb. “Why yes, it has been awhile now, hasn’t it? I’ll admit I thought that giving you two some space after the incident at the Oracle with He Who Shall Not Be Named was only appropriate but I did think it was high time we laid it all out on the table and sorted this out like men.”

Adam’s head almost lolled back and splat open onto the floor in two. Like Ronan Lynch wasn’t enough to leave a bad taste in her mouth, Blue was going to absolutely _loathe_ Gansey.

“I know you don’t mean to be pretentious, but you’re being pretentious.” Adam supplied helpfully.

When Gansey just frowned, Ronan tilted his head back and let out a sharp laugh. Adam couldn't help but fume at how much mirth he was taking in this.

When he turned to catch Blue’s eye again, she was already trotting up to their table with two menus clutched under one arm and a coffeepot in her hand. The coffee sloshed around in the container as she took long, furious strides towards them.

Adam’s brain was proactively exhausted at merely the thought of all these storms and gales amalgamating to leave him in smithereens.

Gansey and Ronan were in the midst of a conversation Adam hadn’t been paying attention to when Blue stopped short an inch away from their booth, her eyes calculating, her tone callous as she snapped. “Who is _he?"_

It was clear that she was referring to Gansey, since Adam’s earlier description of Ronan had made him easily distinguishable. It was also clear because she was pointing an accusatory finger at him.

“An unexpected development,” Adam replied, at the same time as Gansey said, “My name is Richard, but you can call me Gansey. Are you a friend of Adam’s? It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” at the same time as Ronan said, “The Zodiac Killer.”

Blue’s stare could’ve melted diamonds as she arched an incredulous eyebrow at Adam. “Wow, I see what’s happened here. The real Adam Parrish is trapped away somewhere and _you’re_ an evil Adam Parrish clone because the Adam _I_ know would never even sit next to, much less be friends with people like _this_.” Gansey flinched, no doubt opening his mouth to say something good-natured and yet incredibly defensive, while Ronan broke into an amused smirk.

“I can explain,” Adam replied miserably.

“You’re with a Raven Boy. Look at him. He’s wearing rimmed glasses and he smells like a perfume that would probably cost the rest of us our first born child! And don’t even get me started on _that_ one, who looks like he’s about to commit arson.”

“On the contrary,” Ronan said. “I think my existence is arson enough.”

“Did I ask you?” Blue blinked.

“I don’t really care for your fucking permission, sweetheart.”

“ _What_ did you just call me?” she retorted, outraged.

“I assure you. He didn’t mean it in -” Gansey started.

“Don’t they make you in a factory?” she sniped at Gansey, viciously cutting him off and narrowing her eyes.

Adam extended two fingers to his temple and pressed hard before turning to Blue. “Relax, alright? This is Gansey, he’s a friend of Ronan’s, who I had no idea was going to be joining us today, but how about we keep things civil?”

“Fine,” Blue said, gritting her teeth, after catching the silent plea in Adam’s eyes. “But just so you know, I own a switchblade and I’m not afraid to use it.”

Ronan’s lips tugged up in a smile, no doubt to retort with a vicious wisecrack, but Adam gave him a warning kick from beneath the table.

Gansey looked strangely tolerant of all this. “I can assure you that we are getting off on the wrong foot here, Miss, ah… Blue, is it?” he said, squinting his eyes to read the name tag pinned to Blue’s shirt.

“What a wondrously peculiar name.”

Blue looked absolutely stunted by his courteousness. She trained her eyes on Adam. “Does he usually talk like my Great Uncle Ernie?”

“Pretty much,” Adam said, with a small smile that he couldn’t quite stifle.

Blue shot Gansey a tight smile, “I hope you like filtered coffee,” she said, before leaning over and pouring some of the steaming liquid into his cup.

“I’m sorry, do you work here?” he asked.

Blue’s dark eyes flickered flames and Gansey attempted to explain himself. “Since you aren’t wearing the uniform, I just wasn’t sure you worked here.”

“I,” she snapped, pointing another accusatory finger at Gansey. “Refuse to bend to the precarious rules of a depreciating modern society made up by a bunch of bigoted, tweed-clad misogynists because they’re afraid we’re finally speaking up and out against them. Maid culture is gross and even if I have no choice but to work this menial job there is no way I would further their disgusting, sexist agenda.”

“I respect that. I’ve never seen the need for women to tromp around wearing miniscule skirts to qualify for such a job.” He replied.

Blue seemed satisfied with his response and finished pouring him the coffee.

“To answer your previous question, I certainly do. Filtered coffee significantly decreases the risk of coffee-related cholesterol increases, since the filters trap the diterpenes.” Gansey explained, probably thinking he was being helpful.

Blue frowned at Adam. “Make him stop talking before he makes me hate him.”

Gansey pursed his lips together. “I apologize, my intent is not to be offensive. I keep rummaging to find the right thing to say but it appears that the right thing might be null and void in this case.”

Adam nodded miserably. “It’s true, he can’t help what he is.”

“I am aware that I may come to regret making this inquiry, but what would you define me as?” he asked, looking to Adam, but Blue spoke up before Adam could even open his mouth. “You are the gilded prototype of a boastful community of wealthy prigs who feed off the misery of the less fortunate.”

Adam was impressed of Gansey’s mild-mannered mien, how it didn’t crack even under the throes of a volatile Blue.

“I’m sorry that you feel that way, but not everyone with a title and a status is the same. I share a name with my father and nothing quite else. Perhaps, Miss Blue, if you actually took the time to get to know me before passing such neutralizing judgement, then just perhaps, you may realize we actually have more in common than you might imagine and would even gel well together.”

Blue seethed silently at this before shrugging.

“You’re on, President Cell Phone.” She said, eyeing the smartphone he’d presumably gotten off of before joining their table. “I offer you the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to regale me with your fuckboy viles.”

“I’m not a…” Gansey frowned and looked from Adam to Ronan. “What does that mean?”

Adam merely shrugged and bit back a smile and Ronan looked like he’d grown bored of the conversation already and had stopped listening half-way. Blue rolled her eyes. “Are you princes going to order something and make your acquaintance worth my while or?” Adam ordered a coffee and a casserole for himself while Gansey and Ronan decided to split a pepperoni pizza.

“She’s a feisty one,” Gansey said, once Blue had gone off to call their orders.

“Gansey stole my show,” Ronan muttered, feigning disappointment.

When Gansey just frowned, Adam sighed and explained. “She wanted to meet Ronan so Ronan called you here to get back at me for trying to lure him into meeting with her. I think. I’m sorry about… about whatever that was.”

“Well, I suppose it was actually quite stimulating. It’s been awhile since I’ve met such a… I’m lacking adjectives to describe your girl here, Adam.” He said, rather starry-eyed. Ronan’s scowl was dark and immediate and Adam flinched slightly. “She’s not… We’re not… She’s not _my_ girl.” He said. “She’s not anyone’s girl.”

“Oh, no, of course not. I didn’t mean to assume.”

“It’s alright.” Adam looked to Ronan again, his scowl had melted, but there were still flames in his eyes.

“So,” Gansey started, folding his hands on the table. “How is the planning for the secret operation going?”

“You make it sound like we’re a group of middle-schoolers about to egg the principal’s office.” Ronan pointed out.

Gansey flinched. “See I would be covert, but I’ve never committed a felony before so I might be a little rusty.” He said, sounding irked.

“Nobody asked you for your oh-so-gallant help. Adam and I can handle it.” Ronan replied.

“And it’s not a real felony,” Adam added gingerly, just to sate his own conscience.

Gansey didn’t look very convinced, but he sighed and sank further into the couch, somehow magically still achieving to keep his spine erect. Even in the midst of this ordinary little diner in a polo shirt that was so bright it could probably be detected from outerspace, boat shoes on his socked feet and with that skeptical frown plaguing his usually disciplined features, he looked like a king, plotting away in his patient and yet undoubtedly desperate way.

“How are we making sure that he takes the bait? What are our precautions just in case this brilliant plan blows up in all of our faces? When you’re trapping a rabbit, you have to set up a foolproof snare so as not to run the risk of it escaping.” Gansey muttered, rather overbearingly.

Adam felt his jaw clench. “It will work.” He didn’t appreciate his capabilities being questioned. He knew what he was doing. He turned Greenmantle’s blackmail over in his mind. What he had planned next was exactly that, a precautionary step, something that would seal the pamphlet of their victory.

Ronan wasn’t going to like it, Adam wasn’t sure he liked it himself, but it was necessary. An insurance, a lever.

“It’s going to be bulletproof.” He assured once again, to justify himself.

Maybe Gansey caught the intent in Adam’s eyes, because he backed off instantly, his expression shifting curiously. “What devious dish do you have cooking in that intelligent head of yours, Parrish?” he asked.

Ronan lifted his chin, his expression inquisitive in a way that was unlike Gansey. The surging calamity in his stony eyes a brutal juxtaposition and a reminder of what he had riding on this.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Adam snapped, his eyes finding Ronan’s. “You chose to trust me. So trust me.” He then turned to Gansey. “I have one last puzzle piece to maneuver into place. Once that’s in position, I’ll explain everything to you.”

The turbulence of his thoughts was clear on Gansey’s handsome face, but then he just nodded once, curtly and accepted Adam’s words at face value. It was a trustful and respective gesture, Adam didn’t know if Gansey was putting his faith in him just because Ronan had or if he truly bought into Adam’s insistence, but it was reassuring nonetheless.

Ronan changed the topic and they talked about anything possibly else as Blue returned with their respective meals.

When they were done, to Adam’s utter nonplus, Blue told Gansey exactly what time she was getting off her shift when he asked, and Adam made a mental note to pester her about it later.

“Hey, you,” Blue snapped, just as they were shuffling out of their booth. Her eyes were dead set on Ronan’s and Ronan stared back at her with equal determination.

Adam had forgotten how impressive they both were at maintaining unwavering eye contact.

“Stop bullying my friend. _He’s_ doing _you_ a favor. Not the other way around. You better learn to get that straight.”

Ronan pursed his bottom lip. “Are you going to teach me?”

“I don’t waste my time with assholes, you’re just lucky Adam doesn’t subscribe to the same policy.” Blue said. “Now I don’t care how many buildings you’ve burned down or how many skulls you’ve cracked, if you do anything to hinder this for my friend, I will not forgive or forget.”

“Look at that,” he said, holding up his perfectly still hand. “I’m trembling with fear.”

Blue shrugged. “Oh, you will. Maybe Adam forgot to mention that I come from a family of psychics, and do you know what I see in your future, Ronan Lynch? Loneliness, because people like you who do their god awful best to push anyone who bothers to help them away and continue to spiral down their self-destructing paths always end up alone in the end.”

Ronan’s expressionless expression barely twitched at this, but he dropped his hand and took a step forward in silent challenge. “Say that again, little girl.”

“Enough,” Adam said. “Both of you. Stop.”  

Blue did not deter despite Ronan’s menacing glare and Ronan looked like he’d forgotten anything outside of him and Blue existed in the moment.

“Gladly.” Blue retorted.

“Break it off!” Adam repeated, intervening by slipping his body in between the few bare inches they’d left each other.

“I don’t have more time to waste on an asshole anyway,” Blue finally said, pretending to dust off her skirt. “I guess I don’t want to get blood on my new shoes,” Ronan added. Adam had to keep from rolling his eyes at both of them.

“We’re going to get out of your hair now,” Adam said, to Blue. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

Blue just nodded, shot one last hell-freezing death glare at Ronan and turned on her heel.

Adam gently nudged Ronan’s shoulder and kept him moving all the way out the door. Once they traded their goodbyes with Gansey, who was out leaning by his flaming orange Camaro and arguing over the phone with someone called Malory about ley lines and ancient burial grounds, they loaded back into the car and Ronan had them sprinting away from the diner in no time.

* * *

They made half the drive back in silence. Adam’s mind was a whirling carousel of thoughts that spun around and blinked away, so he was happy to just sit back and blearily stare out the window. It was a crisp late afternoon and the sun was a gold glinting dime peeking through a bountiful of trees.

Ronan’s driving was furious. The whole car jerked even along the smoother roads, he honked bloody murder at other vehicles everytime they came upon some customary traffic, and he was pressing on the steering wheel as if it were somebody’s throat.

Maybe Blue’s little speech had ignited something in him. Adam didn’t know what to feel about that. There was a part of him that was cruelly delighted when he considered how true Blue’s words rang, that maybe Ronan was also a lonesome creature. Was that why he’d recognized the lonesomeness in Adam in the first place; because he was lonesome too?

The thought reeled away as the car jerked once again, making Adam’s stomach turn unpleasantly. “Unless your intended destination is the morgue, maybe you should drive slower.” Adam murmured, rather half-heartedly and with his cheek still pressed to the window.

“So,” Ronan said, ignoring Adam’s dull warning. “Mission fucking accomplished.”

Adam sighed. “It wasn’t meant to go down like that.”

“If only the world cared about how Adam Parrish prefers to orchestrate things.” Ronan sneered.

“You know,” Adam started. “You’d like Blue, when she’s not threatening you anyway.”

“She’s protective of you,” Ronan pointed out.

“Yeah,” Adam flushed. “I love that about her.”

Ronan arched an eyebrow at that, but Adam didn’t bother elaborating any further.

“What’s this grand puzzle piece we’re missing?” he finally asked. “Right,” Adam’s voice was faltering.

There had to be a time and place to break such news to Ronan, and Adam didn’t think this was it. He heaved an exhausted breath.

“I’m tired,” he admitted. He’d been staying up in the nights working twice as hard on his assignments after the blip that had been that last test. “Can we talk about it later?” Adam watched the muscles work under Ronan’s cheek before he nodded his okay.

Adam turned back to the window, something warm flooding in his stomach when he realized that Ronan had immediately accepted his request.

When they got back home, Adam made a quick phone call to Blue.

"How was your date?" he asked. 

"It was _not_ a date." 

"Okay, how was your not-date?"

"He's insane in a really interesting way."

Adam smirked. "How many times did he mention his dead king?" 

"I think I would've burst a brain cell if I'd kept count." Blue admitted. 

"Mm," Adam hummed.

"I'm seeing him again. For purely platonic reasons, of course. I want on board his cuckoo train." 

"Seriously?"

He could practically see the hungry twinkle in Blue's eyes. Gansey's fanaticism had a way of catching on. "I'm feeling adventurous."

"Hey, Blue?" Adam began. 

"Yeah?"

"What you said to Ronan earlier..." 

"Did it knock any sense into him at all?"

"I just wanted to say thank you,"

"Oh, you. Shut up already with the unnecessary gratitude." 

"What did you think of him, though?" He had to know.

"Sour cream and distasteful. Now with 30% more asshole!" 

"He's getting better." He promised. 

"You know, at some point, Adam. You're going to have to explain to me what's up with you two."

"What?" Adam blanched. 

"You've been strangely tolerant with him. Too tolerant. Suspiciously tolerant."

"He's my paycheck. Or at least... he's a guarantee of my paycheck." 

"You talk like he's more than that." Blue detected.

Adam sighed. "Maybe I don't want to see him waste his potential. You don't know him like I do. He's a good person."

"So was Hitler. According to some."

_"Blue,"_

"Okay, okay. Fine. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. But only because I trust you and because I've already been pleasantly surprised once today."

"What did Gansey do? Show you his stamp collection?"

"I still think he's a privileged jerk but like most domestic creatures, he can be tamed."

"Hey. Now you're just objectifying him with your crude female gaze." Adam teased.

"Ha-ha," she chuckled dryly. "Hey, I gotta go. I think Calla's about to blow a gasket. I'll talk to you soon, though."

"Sure," Adam said, and sighed as he cut the phone, staring up at the ceiling blankly before he collapsed on his bed, his eyes stinging, his breath lagging. 

Sleep was a welcome distraction from the churning and unpredictable whirlpool that had become his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- so these last few chapters and this story as a whole and a lot of pynch's dynamic reminds me of this poem 'Litany in which certain things are crossed out' and here are just some of my favorite lines from it:  
> \- I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later. And the part where I push you flush against the wall and every part of your body rubs against the bricks, shut up, I'm getting to it.  
> \- Inside your head you hear a phone ringing and when you open your eyes only a clearing with deer in it. Hello deer. Inside your head the sound of glass, a car crash sound as the trucks roll over and explode in slow motion.  
> \- Hello darling, sorry about that. Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it out loud. Especially that, but I should have known.  
> \- You see, I take the parts that I remember and stitch them back together to make a creature that will do what I say or love me back.  
> \- The wooden halls like caskets. These terms from lower depths. I take them back. Here is the image of the lover destroyed. Crossed out. Clumsy hands in a dark room. Crossed out.  
> \- okay i swear i can't quote the entire poem but those parts especially? really relate to the story and give me chills. you guys should check out the whole poem though, 110/10 would recommend.  
> \- and as always, thank you so much for reading!! please don't hesitate to leave me a comment (or ten ;)).


	15. Desire Lines

_"When you kissed me a stove flicked on, generators began to hum. We left each other like altars in a bombing run. In this room where you are not, night lowers itself all around me. I stare at my fingers - little archeologists clutching brilliant shovels. They leap from my hands and begin to dig."_ _\- Jeremy Radin_

* * *

When Adam woke up and stretched out his legs, the indigo shadows that pressed against his bedroom window indicated that it was past sunset. The digital clock on the nightstand confirmed seven-forty-eight pm.

Adam’s stomach was painfully empty and his throat felt dry as the bottom of an abandoned well.

He changed out into a new pair of pants and a fresh t-shirt before padding downstairs to whip up something to eat.

To his surprise, he could already smell something brewing from the kitchen. Music enveloped the living room and seemed to rumble through the flooring against Adam’s bare feet, but instead of Ronan’s usual raucous wailing heavy metal, it sounded like an instrument Adam could only recognize as the Irish pipes.

Ronan stood in the kitchen in nothing but a pair of dark sweatpants and those weathered leather bands that always trapped his wrists. The intricate tattoo that covered the length of his spine and snaked up his neck was stark and haunting under the fluorescent lighting. More real than anything else in the room.

Adam squinted at it. Even from afar, he could see the vicious tail-ends and the beautifully sinuous vines of the monochromatic design running a dark inky river against Ronan’s light skin.

It was peculiar in a way that suited somebody like Ronan, like it fit just as firmly as his own bones. As Adam drew cautiously closer, he saw a beak and then a scythe, flowers and then daggers. It was almost as if the image was ever-shifting, so complicatedly engraved that it became an optical illusion of sorts, the physical portrayal of a fever dream.  
  
He was stirring a pot with a big wooden spoon, a packet of bolognese sauce sat on the counter besides the stove. Adam’s stomach growled at the mere sight.

“Are you… Are you cooking?” he mustered, disbelief bleeding through his words.

“What does it look like I’m doing, fuckhead?” Ronan replied.

“But you never cook.”

“Hey man, never say never right?” he said, lightly peppering the mix, his fingers working like they'd been made to handle spices.

Adam bit his bottom lip. He was at an utter loss for words.

“Did you fire Anita?” he asked, skeptically.

“I gave her an early holiday.”

“I don’t understand.” He felt like he’d woken up into the wrong world.

“Here,” Ronan muttered, turning around and holding up the spoon. There was a light instance of stubble across his jaw that hadn’t been there a day before. “Taste this.”

Adam stared at it warily, as if Ronan were offering him a spoonful of bleach.

“It’s not poisoned, is it?”

Ronan shrugged. “Might be.”

Adam let out a huff but leaned in as Ronan stuffed the spoon into his mouth. He did it with more force than was necessary but Adam swallowed, despite the slight urge to gag; due to the spoon almost clogging his windpipe and not the spaghetti, which actually tasted quite delicious, or maybe that was just his hunger talking.

“That’s really good.”

“Mom’s old recipe,” he muttered, before going back to stirring. He then set the flame low and pulled himself up onto the counter, blue eyes dazzling just as he closed them and tilted his head slightly to concentrate on the music.

“I didn’t think you listened to any genre of music other than the screams of the damned.”

“Parrish, you wound me,” Ronan said,  without opening his eyes. “For all your confidence, maybe you don’t know me after all. ”

Even though he’d detected the sarcasm in the other boy’s words, for the first time Adam thought that maybe he was right. When he wasn’t trying to look like an asshole, his face looked very different, and for a tilting moment, Adam felt the startlingly inequality of their relationship: Ronan knew Adam, or at least understood more about him than he often let on, but Adam wasn’t sure he knew Ronan, after all.

It was supposed to be vice versa, so where had he gone wrong?

“Get the placemats,” Ronan said, as he yanked a pair of plates out of the cupboard over his head and brought them over to the dining table. Adam did as he was told before settling down at the table. Ronan brought over a steaming pot of spaghetti, a couple cans of coke and some paper napkins before crashing down on the chair by his side. He then lathered a generous amount of spaghetti onto his plate.

When Adam looked expectantly at him, Ronan just scoffed. “Serve yourself, man. I’m not Betty fucking Crocker.”

They ate in silence, even though Adam could tell Ronan was itching to get answers out of Adam and his patience was wearing thinner by the minute.

“Just ask me,” he said, when he couldn’t stand Ronan’s electrifying gaze anymore.

“I was riding out your stonewalling. You sure you done?”

Adam paled. “I wasn’t stonewalling,” he said, defensively.

“Liar.”

“I mean, technically, I was exhausted and I needed the rest. Talking about it -”

Ronan cut him off harshly. “Screw technicalities.”

“Fine,” Adam said, with a sigh, as he finished up the last of his spaghetti. Ronan was still going back for thirds, there was a bloody dabbing of sauce smothered over his bottom lip, and Adam had the strangest urge to lick it off. He cleared his throat. “Let me just wash my plate.”

“Still stalling, then.” Ronan muttered, with a sarcastically gallant nod.  
  
“Not stalling!” Adam called, the scowl evident in his voice.

“Stop lying. It doesn’t suit you.” Ronan replied, from the table.  
  
Once they’d finished up in the kitchen, they went out onto the porch to sit and get some fresh air since the rooftop had fallen victim to the shitting habits of various flocks of birds and neither of them were in the mood for an impromptu spring cleaning.

Dusk had snuggled into the drowsy neighborhood and the sky had taken on a smoky-spruce tinge. A few fireflies sparkled in the soupy late-evening air. The weather had been unpredictable lately, it was cold one day and warm the next. A low wind whistled like the tune of an invisible flute and made the trees curtsy and wave.

Adam watched a young boy riding his bicycle back home, a cat’s glowing eyes from beneath someone’s Ford, and heard an owl hooting from one of the high branches.

It was the kind of suburban dreamland he’d always wished to grow up in. Where kids felt safe and people walked their dogs and the nights felt theatrical instead of horrifying.

For a brief moment, Adam thought he could smell it in the air, the ripe stench of blood and alcohol, but it was gone the next, replaced by the scent of Ronan’s cologne and dried leaves picked up by the breeze.

Ronan had put his shirt back on, an action Adam was thankful for, considering all that exposed skin just distracted him, bringing back dream-like memories of nails scraping skin and lips grazing cheeks and fingers clenched safety-seal-tight.

Apparently they still weren’t going to acknowledge what was going on in between them.

Blue had seemed dangerously curious, and somehow, Adam was ashamed at the idea of telling her the truth. Not because he was ashamed of their… whatever it was, but because he was ashamed of himself for letting things take such a personal turn.

Ronan, on the other hand, was blissfully ignorant as expected. Like he had not a care in the world.

There was a part of Adam that wondered what that felt like, to be unburdened by practicalities.

To be able to walk into a room without having to map out each exit and imagine every possible scenario that could go wrong. Adam looked at a building and imagined what it would look like on fire. Ronan probably looked at a building and saw it for what it was, just a stack of bricks.

The other boy stretched his long legs out in front of him and leaned back on his elbows before casting Adam a hooded look. “The fuck are you waiting for, a drumroll?”

Adam just shook his head slowly and pressed his thumbs into his eyes. “Promise me you won’t freak out.”

Ronan’s voice was derisive. “Always with the promises. Aren’t promises meant to be broken?”

Adam bit his lip. “In my household, yes, but I’d like to think all the world isn’t as depraved.”

“All the world’s gonna disappoint.”

“Oh Lynch. Sometimes you’re just rainbows and sunshine.”

“Just keeping it real, man.” He said, then. “Come on, Parrish. Spit it out or I _swear,_ ”

“Or what? You going to kiss me again?” Adam wasn’t at all surprised when Ronan didn’t grace that question with a response. So he sighed and finally let it out. “The last piece of the puzzle is the man you almost beat to death.”

Ronan chuckled dryly, before dropping the smile to compile a scowl. “What?”

“We need to enlist Mr. Gray’s help.”

Ronan’s eyes flared like solar storms. “Like hell we do.”

“Look, I don’t like it either, but we need this to be bulletproof, right? Mr. Gray was hired by Greenmantle, he may have some crucial information. Maybe even some personal, damning kind of information. I’d like to go over the plan with him. He’s been in this dirty business a long time. Having an ally like him is the fuel we need to fire. I don’t want to walk into a possible fight blind and unarmed.”

Adam turned and laid a tentative hand on Ronan’s arm, which now dangled loosely around his knees. The boy wouldn’t look at him, his breaths were loud and furious, his eyes trained on the skyline as if it could knock some sense into this situation. He could feel Ronan’s pulse crashing in his arm where he restrained him.

“No,” Ronan just shook his head. “Fucking no. What makes you think he’d even help us? Help me? You said it yourself, shitbag. I almost killed him.”

“You’ll apologize.”

“Yeah, that’s going to happen. Maybe tomorrow we’ll all hold hands around the fire and sing kum-ba-yah. You’re out of your fucking mind.”

“Quemadmodum gladius neminem ocidit; occidentis telum est.” Adam said, using his own words as weapons against him. A reminder. _A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer’s hand._

Ronan’s expression was warfare, his jaw tightened and he flicked his arm so that Adam could take his hand away before breaking into a string of nasty expletives and then adding an insult at the end that Adam would better receive.

“Fuck you.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Adam asked, irritably. “Because I’m listening.”

“It’s a long shot,” he continued. “But it’s worth a gamble. I did my fair share of research into Mr. Gray’s files - what I could gather on him, anyway. He chose not to press charges against you despite what you did. He lives in a tiny apartment downtown and goes bird-watching on the weekends. Did you know he follows an Anglo-Saxon poetry club on Facebook? Something tells me he can be reasoned with. He could strengthen our bait.”

“A hit man with morals,” Ronan muttered. “Are you stupid?”

Adam shrugged. “You’re a church-goer with a drinking problem and an ability to make dreams into concrete. Your friend Gansey’s practically a prince looking for a dead king. I’m a trailer-born sober companion whose blurring the lines of the rulebook by aiding and abetting a fake murder. Blue’s a non-psychic in a family of psychics who amplifies psychic energies. Is it really that crazy in the world we've come to know?”

When Ronan said nothing, Adam carried on, taking it as an encouragement. “Remember what I said about greys? Mr. Gray isn’t black, he’s just another morally grey person. Can we at least give this a shot? If it works out, we’ve _got_ him, Ronan. We’ve got him trapped.”

Ronan was quiet for what felt like an eternity and a half. When Adam risked a glance over at him again, he looked like he was begrudgingly weighing their options and their ostensible outcomes.  
  
The moonlight made a strange sculpture of Ronan’s face, a stark portrait incompletely molded by a sculptor who had forgotten to work in compassion. He did his smokers’ inhale, heavy on the intake through the nostrils, light on the exhale through his prison of teeth.

After a pause, he said, “I hate you.”

Adam huffed a breath of his own. “Great. Is that a yes?”

Ronan’s lashes drooped low. “We’re so going to hell for this.”

“I was already on my way there.” Adam replied, unable to abort the small, triumphant smile that snuck up his face.

“So that thing you said about your Mary Poppins chick? That really true huh?” Ronan asked.

“Her family’s a group of psychics, yes. You want to go for a reading?”

Ronan arched an incredulous eyebrow. “Why the fuck would I want to know my future?”

“Right, because you don’t care if you even have one. What do you really want, Ronan? You must have some goal, some ambition. Nobody lives without rhyme or reason.”

“Au contraire,” Ronan replied. “Most people do. Rhymes and reasons are futile as shit. We’re all dying anyway. Nothing matters.”

“You couldn’t have always believed that.”

“I believed a lot of things and then they screwed me over.”

There was something cosmically dark ringing his irises. Something that Adam often recognized in his own reflection. It was a reminder of every cruel thing he’d ever done, every awful thought that had kept him up at night, the monster that slept inside him, restrained in the depths of a complicated conscience.

It was almost beautiful; in a way that always hurt.

A reminder of a world that did not ease the tightness of the chains that it had bound against your throat. A reminder of how grief wrecked even the best of people.

Ronan wore the look of someone who had journeyed through every corner of hell and had somehow managed to crawl out of it alive.

But the darkness was a thief and he always took something from you and left something else behind. It’d left behind a kid with lungs mechanical; still working but only like clockwork, robotic rather than rousing from any real reason to live.

His ability to hope had been snatched from him.  
  
Maybe Ronan was only half the boy he’d been before. Maybe he was coming to realize that there were still pieces of himself he could put back into place. That not all was lost.

Ronan was cooking again. He was listening to pleasant music. On good days, he even managed a smile that wasn’t satirical in nature, and he kissed with everything that was left; everything that the storm hadn’t been successful in decimating away.  

This boy. This broken mosaic of a boy, could be brought back to life.

“Not a reason to turn your back on the world. Disappointment is a part of life. It can even stir up motivation.” Adam said.

“Well… My anger motivates me.”

“You’re undying need for a reckoning.” Adam said and Ronan nodded. “You know, anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”

“Are you quoting Mark Twain at me right now?” He asked, arching an eyebrow.

“I’m surprised you recognize his words but yes, I’m totally quoting Mark Twain at you.”

Ronan scoffed. “Don’t be a wiseass, wiseass.”

Adam merely shrugged. “You’re evading the question.”

Ronan let out a ragged breath. “I don’t know what I want. I don’t know what the hell I am.”

“I know what you are,” Adam said, his voice barely a whisper now, like a dying candle. Ronan’s eyes were rapt on him, he looked like a man who’d caught his first glimpse of water after a prolonged period of thirst. “You’re a dreamer. So don’t be afraid to dream.”

Ronan’s lips quivered, Adam pressed a hand to the side of his neck and then they were kissing.

This time, Adam had no excuse. This time, he’d initiated the kiss. This time, he could feel his bones rattle.

Suddenly all that existed was the crushing weight of Ronan’s lips on his and the paralyzing stillness of a mind rendered white with heated desire. Only before he could even contemplate what he was doing, Ronan was pushing him away, heavy hands pressing harshly against Adam’s chest, digging into the thin cloth of his shirt with intent. Dejected and embarrassed, he immediately reeled himself back.

Adam dropped his gaze from the other boy’s face and nervously ran the back of his hand over his mouth as if he could just scrub the evidence of the gesture away.

His body was habitually attempting to morph into negative space. His stomach still felt warmly knotted, every nerve in his body abuzz and alight. He’d never felt this way before. He didn’t understand, but a blissfully ignorant part of him didn’t even care to. It just wanted to reap the benefits.

Ronan said nothing for so long that Adam couldn’t stand it, as if the silence was a suffocating gag over his mouth.  
  
A dull wind skittered past them, making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, a car drove past the sleepy neighborhood road, rattling leaves and casting its headlights at them, drenching their faces in gold for merely a moment before bounding off into the dark.

Ronan was drumming his fingers over his knees rather frantically, his features encased in thought.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.” Adam said, instead of saying what he really wanted to say, which was nothing but petty and petulant.

_What, so you’re allowed to kiss me whenever you want but I’m not entitled to the same?_

“That’s exactly fucking it.” Ronan said.

“What?”

“If you’re going to be sorry about it, then you shouldn’t.”

“But…” the argument died on his lips. What could he even say? He’d known it was wrong. It was wrong in so many ways. This wasn’t something he could put words to, and he’d never had to deal with an emotion he couldn’t categorize, define and put away somehow. Even his darkest thoughts were labeled jars he stored tightly bottled in his head.

This was… Dangerous. Not just because it put both his job and reputation at risk if anyone were to find out, but because it was not a part of his big plan. It was extraneous in the life he was currently cultivating for himself.

There was still a long way’s to go before he could even consider getting back into the dating pool, not that he’d ever really been in it in the first place, but whatever this was… He knew he had no place for it. There was merely a week and a half left. A week and a half and by then, hopefully, as long as everything went according to plan, he would be free of Ronan and Ronan would be free of him, and wasn’t that what they’d wanted from the very start?

Only now things were so very muddled in his head. He’d grown to care about Ronan like a friend, like…. more than a friend? He didn’t _know_ . He _didn’t_ know.

“I’m sorry.” He repeated, helplessly, idiotically.  
  
Ronan’s voice came out in a low growl. “Shut up. Stop apologizing.”

Adam actually had to bite his damn lip to keep from saying it a third time. “It’s not what you’re thinking,” he said, after another uncomfortably taut string of silence.

“What _am_ I thinking?” Ronan challenged quietly.

“Something negative. I… I want to,” he admitted. “I don’t understand it. I know that it could fuck everything up. I know that it doesn’t really make sense but I do want to.”

“Gold stars for you.”

“Then again, everything stopped making sense the day I walked into your godforsaken world.” 

“One man and yet an army's worth of toils.” _  
_

“I know it’s a defense mechanism, but can you cut the sarcasm for like one second?” Adam asked.

Ronan sighed before meeting Adam’s eyes, his face stoic once more. “ _This_ is a defense mechanism,” he said, pointing between their faces. He didn’t know whether he was accusing Adam or whether the statement was detected more inwards.

“Maybe,” Adam admitted softly. “But I’ve broken every other rule anyway. I think I left that line I wasn’t supposed to cross back with the brain cells I abandoned when I chose to aid and abet a make-believe murder.”

“You should go pick them back up then,” Ronan said darkly.

“They’re far beyond my reach now.” Adam replied, eyes boring steadily into Ronan’s.  
  
Ronan’s lower lip curled but he didn’t say anything. He was a low flame set against the encompassing dark.

“Do you want this?” Adam asked, quaveringly.

Ronan was quiet for yet another unsettling age and when he answered, he spoke at a pitch Adam didn’t even know he was capable of. Soft as sunrise. “Yes.”

For some reason, Adam’s heart sped up a little at this and his cheeks heated. It was almost mindblowing that Ronan could know someone like Gansey and still want to pick him. Even more so when he knew that Ronan didn’t lie.

“Do you really think revenge is going to make any of this better?” he questioned, just to change the topic. He wasn’t going to try to kiss him again after that last rejection, even if he did say that he wanted it. Ronan always seemed to be of two minds about everything. Too much soul for one body. Too many dreams in one head.

“It’s going to make that son of a bitch suffer and that does make it better.”

“Revenge won’t bring them back. It won’t change anything. It’ll just be another mess that you’ll be left having to clean up.” Adam rationalized.

“Don’t you think, Parrish, that it’s a little too late to want off the bandwagon?” Ronan said, his chin jutting out a little in reproach.

“I’m not going to abandon you, I’m just trying to remind you that there’s still a chance to opt out, to keep yourself from falling down this dark, twisted rabbit hole.”

Ronan’s lips piled up in a smirk. “I live in the fucking rabbit hole.”

“Hell hath no fury,” Adam muttered.

“Precisely.” Ronan confirmed.

“What if you regret it?” he had to ask.

“I never regret anything. Will you?”

“No.” Adam’s reply was casual and instant.

Ronan arched a suspicious eyebrow. “I really fucking hate when people lie to me.”

“I’m not. I made my choice, whatever happens going forward, I’m ready to suffer the consequences.”

“God damn you, man. If you’d just taken the money and bailed,” Ronan said, shaking his head.

“If only.” Adam agreed.

At this, Ronan leaned forward, and Adam was surprised to find himself eager to meet him halfway. Now that they both knew that the other wanted it, a weight had been lifted off their shoulders and the prospect of a kiss felt light as air and equally needful.

When their lips brushed, the world around them was all blurs and soft-lights, like a movie or a merry-go-round. Ronan’s fingers wound themselves in Adam’s hair and Adam slid his tongue into Ronan’s mouth, grazing teeth. Ronan tasted like spaghetti sauce as he pushed Adam’s tongue off with his own to bite into his lip and Adam’s palm fisted in the hem of Ronan’s t-shirt at the sudden prickling pressure.

When he released his lip, Adam quietly groaned into Ronan’s mouth, heat spreading a whirlpool in his chest. The kisses deepened, suddenly more heated, suddenly more maddening and intense, Ronan still kissed rather harshly, his breaths hard and ragged as stones in Adam’s mouth.

Adam’s hands ran over the length of Ronan’s partially shaven head and Ronan dug his fingers into Adam’s shirt collar before pulling it down to run them over Adam’s bare skin.

Adam felt an all too familiar tug just beneath his navel, his breaths becoming more labored as Ronan tore his mouth off his to press kisses down the side of his face and dig his nose into the dip in Adam’s neck.

A sigh of pleasure escaped from Adam’s mouth and Ronan ran the tip of his tongue over his collarbone before bringing his face back up to Adam’s and speaking against his cheekbone, his lips against his skin, his voice a hoarse whisper.

“Inside,” he murmured, and Adam got the message, allowing Ronan to wrap cool fingers around his wrist and lead him back into the house.

They made it about as far as the door until Ronan shoved Adam against it, the sudden weight of his spine slamming it closed. He fastened his arms around Adam’s neck and mushed their lips together again, his hands tugging at the back of Adam’s shirt by the nape of his neck. Adam untangled himself from Ronan for long enough to peel it off and drop it to the floor before they were pressed up against each other again.

Ronan ran his fingers down Adam’s chest, hard enough to leave pink imprints and Adam bunched a fistfull of Ronan’s shirt at the small of his back as he let out a shallow breath.

Then he was pressing a kiss beneath Adam’s earlobe. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop,” he intoned against it.

Adam’s mind was too addled to form coherent words so he just settled for a vigorous nod. Ronan’s lips slipped back into his and he tugged harshly at his hair to pull him even closer, their bodies slipping against one another like rain dripping down the sidewalks.  
  
Adam let out another low grunt as Ronan dragged his hands down Adam’s heaving stomach before continuing down and lightly gripping the prominent bulge in his pants. “Whoa,” Adam’s breathing was heavy and the word came out as a gasp exhaled into Ronan’s open mouth as he kissed him harder, his surroundings reduced to ashes by the burning urgency that singed between them. Adam dropped his head on Ronan’s shoulder before dragging frantic, indulgent kisses right up the side of his neck, making Ronan shudder and dig his nails harder into Adam’s skin.

Ronan then curled his fingers into the waistband of his pants and pulled him by it towards the couch. Adam was eager to obey as he let himself drop flat against it. Ronan straddled him, bracing himself in between Adam’s hips before sinking down for yet another dizzying kiss. Adam sucked on Ronan’s tongue until Ronan pulled free and pressed his cheek against Adam’s.

“Do you want to stop?” he asked.

Adam was amazed at the coherence Ronan was managing to maintain, because his own mind was just an endless whirl of warmth and pleasure.

“Not yet,” he mustered, rather groggily, but Ronan just nodded once and pushed Adam's shoulders down before leaning forward and sucking a bruise into the side of his neck. Adam let out the softest whimper as Ronan pulled back to inspect the scarred plains of Adam’s chest and abdomen.

He ran his hands over a couple mottled cigarette burns, a gash Adam had received from a stray piece of glass that belonged to a beer bottle, a scar where his flesh had been sliced open when he’d accidently stumbled against the kitchen table and onto a knife in attempts of getting away from his father, and multiple purpling marks over his ribs from where Robert’s fists had met his flesh.

“Jesus Christ,” Ronan breathed, before leaning back and pressing his lips against a deep darkened bruise that cut across the middle of his shivering stomach. He ran caustic kisses over every contusion, soft lips against the graves of scars. When his fingers loosened the string of Adam’s sweatpants he looked up at Adam again, expression questioning, Adam thought his mind had left his body, and whatever was left was purely psychedelic. 

Everything reduced to the hot breaths that escaped from their mouths, the feel of Ronan’s skin under his hands, the devastating domain of his wildfire mouth.

Ronan then cupped Adam’s aching erection through the cloth of his pants and Adam’s mind completely upended to the point where when he opened his eyes to glimpse the room, he was pretty sure he was seeing sideways. One of Ronan’s fingers was clawed in Adam’s open mouth so Adam took it upon himself to press heated kisses against it. Ronan’s other hand applied a little more pressure and Adam released a shuddering, broken breath. His hand began working him faster then and Adam was absolutely eaten up by the waves of heat that wrecked through his body.

When he let out another strangled moan, his heart was practically galloping in his chest. He’d never heard his own voice sound so feral, so starved and visceral.

Adam couldn’t help it, he tilted his chin forward so he could intently lock his eyes with Ronan’s and wrapped trembling fingers over Ronan’s wrist where it was still wrapped around the length of his cock, he gently directed his hand back up to the elastic band of his underwear from beneath his sweats and they pulled at it until his erection was out in the open.

For a moment, Ronan’s hands stilled and his eyes were wide as moons as he took all of Adam in.

Maybe Adam would’ve cared to feel judged or scrutinized or even insecure if he could have gotten his mind to work, but instead all he thought was of the weight of Ronan’s clever hands deeply pressed into his skin.

The next thing he knew Ronan was trailing kisses up his ribs to his chin and then dipping his tongue back into Adam’s mouth as he positioned himself over Adam so that Adam could stretch out his bent knees and Ronan could once again wrap his hands around Adam’s erection.

Adam almost lost all sense of everything. He’d never been touched like this before. Never even understood anything about those sweet, good-intentioned touches that he’d thought were myths for so long.

Touch had always been so violent, so evil, always monstrous in intent, but this… This was reverent.

Adam closed his eyes as Ronan pumped his length and pressed his lips to the glistening tip, running his tongue in lazy circles over it. Adam’s stomach clenched, his knees buckled, his vision blurred further.

 _“Fuck, Ronan,”_ Adam grunted. He pressed his fingers into the back of Ronan’s neck and scratched his scalp with blunt fingernails.

The pleasure swelled rapidly, taking his body apart like a hurricane. He’d never felt like this before. He’d never felt so alive before. He’d never known a pain that ached so good or a heat that left scars painted like suns, brightening his skin rather than darkening it.

His back arched, his muscles felt strung like guitar strings and as he came into Ronan’s warm palm, his breaths grew more ragged, more harsh, Ronan’s name brimming at his mouth like an incantation, like a magic spell.

The spell broke and for a few moments they both just lay there on top of each other, their breaths the only sound filling the room. Ronan slowly crawled his way back up Adam’s body and engulfed him in another swelling kiss before pulling away again.

Ronan, still fully clothed and pink-faced, Adam, half-naked, half-starved, half-full. They stared into one another’s eyes for a prison of a moment, and Adam felt entirely wrecked, conquered, speechless in a way that he’d never been before as he slowly floated down from his high.

Adam could still feel Ronan’s warm breath on his face, his blue eyes rather glassy and enchanted as he watched Adam with an expression that Adam couldn’t quite place. Something like awe, something like anger, something like amazement.  
  
Then Ronan carefully pulled himself off of him and sauntered off to the kitchen. Adam felt the weight of his body disappear, leaving him feeling strangely empty and exposed.

He heard the water tap turn on in the kitchen as Ronan washed his hands. Quickly, before Ronan came back, he rode his sweatpants back up and almost fell flat on his face in an attempt to get his weak legs from stumbling as he tried to get up and make a move for his t-shirt that was trashed halfway across the room.

He didn’t quite know how he would ever get his bearings straight ever again.

He actually had to grab ahold of the armrest of the sofa and then the edge of the coffee table as if he were wobbling around in the dark. His legs hadn’t felt this weak since he ran that charity marathon for a college event last fall.

As he leaned down to pick up and put on his t-shirt he regained his balance finally, but leaned his head against the wall anyway, a little caught up by the submerging reality of what had just happened.

Ronan padded back out into the living room only to completely ignore Adam and make his way across the hall to his bedroom.

Before Adam could even say something to get him to stop, he’d already slammed the door closed behind him.

Adam took a deep breath and let it out, too discombobulated to deal with his sudden mood swing. So he headed upstairs to his own room and pulled open his Psych notes, hoping to get some revision done, but his mind was still awash with the bittersweet and damning truth.

He’d just received a handjob from Ronan Lynch and he’d liked it. Liked it so much in fact, that he wanted to do it again and this time, he wanted to return the favor.

Even if he was inexperienced, even if this was going against his own better judgement, even if everything was about to go to hell.  
  
When he fell asleep that night, infiltrating thoughts of kisses and flames and dreams followed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- once again, i weaved some of the short passages i liked from the books into the story.  
> \- please leave me a comment & thanks so much for reading!!


	16. Painting Greys

_"The nights disappear like bruises, but nothing is healed." - W.S Merwin_

* * *

It wasn’t surprising to Adam when it turned out that the Gray man was not a man easily found, since hitmen didn’t exactly place their ads in newspapers.

Luckily Adam knew just the person who could help pin him down.

Noah Czerny was a friend and Adam’s ex college roommate, when he wasn’t at the skateboarding rink or getting drunk on his mother’s schnapps, he was a part-time hacker. From tracing IP addresses to infiltrating traffic cams, if you needed someone found, chances were Noah could help locate them.

The kid’s family was loaded, which had made it difficult for Adam to get along with him in the beginning, but Adam had soon found that befriending Noah was much like befriending a puppy. It was taxing to keep around and you had to validate it all the time, but it was also too loving and sweet for you to ever be able to get mad at it for longer than five seconds at a time.

Noah wanted to be a professional skateboarder and college had been the last thing on his mind, but his parents had wanted for him to work towards a ‘real people career,’ and seeing no true scope in Noah’s preferred line, they’d threatened to cut off his funds and leave him fiscally vulnerable.

So Noah, being the ever-optimistic and compensating person that he was, struck a deal with them. He told them he’d go to college and pick up some standard, boring major as long as they allowed him to continue pursuing skateboarding on the side. After some hesitation, they agreed and Noah began working towards an undergraduate degree in PPE at Buckwell University.

Ever since then, he kept attempting to find new ways to get himself into trouble. That’s when he’d started hacking and drinking and often skipping classes for days at a time to attend local skateboarding events instead.

Noah still loved his family, his sisters had often come to visit when Adam had been living with him, but Adam couldn’t quite blame him for feeling the need to act out. Saying that he understood what it was like to cave under the judgemental ideals of oppressive parents would have been the understatement of the year.

So Adam drove to visit Noah at his off-campus apartment. He was in his very last semester of college before he was free to bid long endless hours in classes he didn’t care for and four am study group sessions goodbye forever.

Adam frowned as he headed up the spiral staircase that led up to Noah’s pad.

When he reached the door, he realized two things 1) Noah Czerny’s sense of humor was just as juvenile as he remembered and 2) Noah Czerny was not alone. Punk music blasted from behind the closed door, making Adam feel like the ground was reverberating beneath his feet.

There were multiple black-and-yellow ‘KEEP OUT’ signs stuck haphazardly against the door and a cardboard poster glued with a flimsy tack that simply read ‘The Crow’s Nest’ with a fairly unimpressive third-grader calibre doodle of a black bird.

Adam almost considered turning around and walking away. In between Ronan and classes, time was a bit of a constraint, and the only reason he’d managed to venture out this far was because he’d gotten a lucky one and a half hour break before his next class.

He’d texted Noah earlier, asking for his help, and while Noah had only replied in a complicated algorithm of multifaced emojis, Adam had taken his enthusiasm as an affirmative.

As tempting as it was to narrowly avoid Noah and a group of his weird skater buddies, a bunch of on-call girls, a literal henhouse - whatever it was that waited for him beyond that door, it didn’t matter.

The end goal once again, trumped his discomfort. He had to do this now or he would never.

So he buried all his social reservations and gave the door a couple precise knocks. The door burst open about a minute later, the music getting considerably louder and making Adam rather grateful for being partially deaf.

Noah stood in front of him, looking like a toddler on a sugar rush with his fairylight eyes and messy, uncombed blond hair. “Adam! Adam Parrish! Yo! Guys! It’s my buddy, my bro, Adam!” before Adam could even open his mouth to come up with some sort of a sensible response, Noah smothered him into a suffocating bear hug.

He was quite strong for a lanky child who probably ate nutella for breakfast, Adam would give him that. Noah smelled like salty chips and m&ms as he pulled himself back.

“It’s nice to see you haven’t changed one bit,” Adam muttered, with a nod.

“Come in! Come in!” Noah exclaimed, taking a step backwards to let him through and bowing rather gallantly in welcome.

Adam had forgotten how restless and animated Noah could be.

His living room was modern and spacious and looked exactly the sort of place that belonged in a television sitcom that followed the lives of a quirky group of friends who lived together with its brightly painted walls, colorful and contrasting furniture, the sculptures of headless female bodies that looked like they were bought at some pretentious art gallery and the picture windows that came equipped with an obligatory view of the city skyline.

“Would you like something to drink or eat or smoke or drink?” Noah asked, before blinking. “Wait, I already said drink, didn’t I?” then he laughed like it was the funniest thing that had happened all day.

Adam rolled his eyes but shook his head. “I’m good.”

As he followed Noah further inside, his suspicion about Noah not being alone rang true.

There were about seven other people all curled up together in what Adam presumed was the lounge area. They were all dressed strangely, either in swimsuits or just a pair of bermudas, party dresses or plaid shirts. Two girls and one boy were seated on a plushy-looking cyan sofa with built-in speakers, the girls were giggling to each other about something while the boy typed away on his phone.

Beyond them was a chaotic wasteland of blankets, snack foods, energy drinks and various bottles of booze. One boy was laid out on his stomach and had a flower crown in his hair, which matched the one currently perched on Noah’s head. Another girl was seated cross-legged in front of a pyramid of beer cans with a garland of cheap, tacky looking gems around her neck.

There was glitter in the carpet, sprinkling the fancy table and smothered across some of their cheeks. Music boomed from the wide flat screen television in front of them, ostensibly with surround-sound and an attached gaming console.

Everyone looked up at their arrival and cheered at Noah in greeting.

“Who’s the boy toy?” the girl by the beer cans asked, looking up at Adam with feline eyes.

Noah pointed an accusatory finger at her. “Steer clear,” he said. “He’s mine.”

Adam blinked in surprise but Noah just kept walking past them so Adam blindly followed, neatly sidestepping the sprawled bodies of people and junk. Noah led him down the hall to what Adam presumed was his bedroom before shutting the door behind them.

“Sorry about that. Our glitter parties tend to get a little out of hand. Believe it or not, those people have been here since, like, Friday. It’s all cool though. We’re having a movie marathon!”

Adam merely arched an eyebrow. “ _Glitter_ parties?”

“It’s a sacred tradition. Don’t ask. Unless you wanna know. But like, I doubt you being you would wanna know. I know what you’re really here for. You’re here for Morpheus.” His voice changed at that last word, all gruff and robotic in pseudo-menace.

“Like from The Matrix?”

“Shit! Is that where that’s from? I kept thinking it wasn’t a cool name I’d made up in my head. All the names I make up are lame and this one I actually thought was really dope. Great, now I have to come up with a new hacktivist alias.”

Adam shook his head again. “Listen. I know it’s been awhile but this is really important and I’m a little short on time. Here’s the information. Do you think you can track the guy?” he pulled out everything he had on Mr. Gray from his messenger bag and handed it to Noah.

“Easy peezy lemon squeezy.” Noah nodded after sifting through the papers. Adam wasn’t sure how much he’d actually properly read through considering he’d come to that conclusion rather quickly, but he didn’t bother doubting Noah’s methods, not if he could heed results.

Noah’s bedroom was all Blink-182 posters, funky lava lamps and neon bedspreads. It matched the boy, currently dressed in an obscure band t-shirt with its sleeves cut out and a pair of jeans that looked to be faded on purpose rather than Adam’s legitimately washed up variety, with body glitter making his pale skin twinkle like a runway.

Adam sniffed. “Why does your room smell like marijuana?”  
  
Noah shrugged. “It’s medicinal.”

“It’s also illegal.” Adam pointed out. 

“In some parts of the world.” 

“Including _this_ one.” Adam grit his teeth. “Jesus, Noah. I just don’t want to see you get into trouble.”

“But I’m already the ringleader of my own private criminal empire.” When Adam just blinked at him, Noah chuckled. “Relax! I’m only joking. Smoking some Maui Wowie sometimes doesn’t make me like Mr. Evil or whatever. Plus, you're one to talk. It's not like you're here for my exquisite baking skills or my out-of-this-world party planning abilities. You came looking for my more controversial skill set. It’ll be alright.” He said, before bouncing down on a wheeled chair and pulling up to the complicated contraption he called a computer set. 

“Who is this guy anyway?” Noah asked as he began typing away.

Adam flinched. “I think it might be the best in both of our interests if you just don’t ask any questions.”

It wasn’t fair to Noah and Adam knew it. If by any chance, he got into trouble because of this, it was all going to be on Adam, but Adam trusted Noah’s skills, he’d seen firsthand how sure-fire his methods were.

If things did end up going south however, he was prepared to take the blame.

Adam expected Noah to question him further, but he just shrugged and stared back up at the computer screen. “So. How have you been. Where have you been? It feels like forever. You still pursuing all that Psyche stuff?”   

“I know. I’m sorry to spring this on you like this. I’m sure you have uh…” Adam frowned, turning his head a little to make sure the bedroom door was still closed. “Better things to do with your time. I really appreciate the help, though. As for Psychology, yes. I’m hoping to get with the grad program soon. If all goes well this term…”

“What about the companion job I hooked you up with? This wouldn’t have anything to do with that by any chance, would it?” Noah asked.

“Why would you think that?”

“Have you met you, Adam? You text me out of the blue like a day before showing up at my place during _college hours_ to ask for my help tracing some random dude on the internet. You once threatened to bust me when I tried one harmless puff of a cigarette and you hate when I get involved in all this. Now you’re here asking me to hack into secure networks because what… new class project? Track secretive people down and bust ‘em? It just isn’t typical you behaviour.”

Adam’s stomach turned. He’d forgotten that beneath the scatterbrained hipster exterior how smart Noah actually was. Before Adam could answer, he saw Noah’s attention snap back to the screen. His gaze focused all of a sudden. It was rather jarring watching twitchy, hyperactive Noah’s face take on such a serious look.  

“What is it?”

“Your guy’s a weirdo.”

“What is it?”

“He likes birds and poetry and poetry about birds.” Noah frowned and whirled around on his squeaky chair. “He looks like your average Joe Boring. No run-ins with the police. Not even a parking ticket. He’s subscribed to Nat Geo magazine and multiple Anglo-Saxon archives. He pays his taxes and even has a higher than average credit score. You’re looking at a model citizen here. Why on earth would you be interested in him?”

“A suspiciously model citizen,” Adam muttered, pressing a finger to his chin in thought.

“Do you need a social security number or something?”

“More like I need a phone number or even an address.”

“Oh, well, why didn’t you say so? Okay. Hold on,” Noah said, before flittering back to his keyboard.

He was glad The Gray Man was seemingly equipped at covering his tracks. There was no way Noah wouldn’t get all up in his grill if he found out the true profession of the random dude whose records they were pretty much illegally sneaking into. It was best if Adam didn’t get Noah involved in this preposterous mess. He already had Gansey to deal with and Blue to answer to.

 _Listen to yourself_ , a chary voice in his head suddenly prompted. _Look what tangling yourself with Ronan God-Damn-Him Lynch has gotten you into._

The voice wasn’t wrong, unease settled like a concrete monster in his stomach. He was running the risk of getting in trouble with the law, if even a single one of the five-hundred terribly awful outcomes came to be, he was a dead man. He could then kiss goodbye everything that he’d ever strived towards or dreamed of.

Adam’s breath suddenly hitched in his throat and he had to grab the back of Noah’s chair to steady himself.

Noah didn’t seem to notice his sudden faltering, his eyes still glued to whatever it was that he was doing to get Adam’s results.

_I am my own priority, so why am I putting myself at risk for someone else’s waiting game?_

It was reckless, it was stupid. It was every ‘don’t’ in the book, but so was Ronan Lynch, and apparently he’d taken to _doing him_ just fine.

Bigger picture, he reminded himself.

They’d struck a deal, he was just attempting to keep up his end of the bargain. If things went smoothly, he would have his money, Ronan would have his revenge and maybe… Maybe Adam could sign off of this job for good as soon as the week came to an end and continue to pursue a relationship with Ronan outside of the job where they could really try.

As two individuals without this weird contractual barrier between them… but would Ronan even want him then? Did Ronan even want him now?

He was Adam Parrish after all. What else did he have to offer except for himself?

Ronan would probably get bored of him by the end of all this and yet being Ronan’s sober companion and kissing him felt like cheating.

As if he were taking advantage or something. How could he accept the money from Declan when he was letting himself get caught up in Ronan’s lips? Had he completely lost his way? Denial and repression would only lead him so far before he dropped six feet down into rockbottom and split his head open on all the mistakes he’d made ever since he’d signed up for this.

He’d let Ronan touch him… and do things to him that…

“Yo,” Noah said, clapping his hands to get Adam’s attention. “Are you on like a trip?”

Adam blinked. Noah was shooting him a considerably scrutinizing stare. “What’s your angle here?” he asked.

“Did you… Did you get the number?” Adam mustered.

“And an address. Game, set and match.” Noah replied, with a triumphant little smile, but the smile was quickly replaced with a narrowed gaze. “He wasn’t easy to crack into. Should I be worried about you? Is this some kind of a cult thing? Who is this guy, really?”

Adam silently wished he had an answer for him that wasn’t almost equally, if not more farfetched than Noah’s suspicions.

Adam ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Thank you so much for your help,” he began.

“Yeah, and now it’s time to pay the fee.” When Adam paled, he snorted. “The truth. Is everything alright with you? I feel like you’ve been replaced with a government clone or something. Not even like a super good imitation of one. More garden variety or like a made-in-china knock-off version of you.”

“You don’t want to get involved,” Adam said, with a sigh. “Trust me.”

“How would you know?” Noah asked, before his eyes widened. “Unless you got struck by lightning or something and now you can read my mind! _Dude_. Don’t poke around in there. Crazy shit happens up here,” he said, tapping at his own temple. There was something in Noah’s eyes, something undefiled and innocent, as if he bathed in milk every morning.

Sometimes, Adam was surprised there wasn’t a ring of blue cartoon birds circling Noah’s head at all times. It was a privilege to be able to be so carefree and naive about the world, Adam thought, and there was a part of him that would do absolutely anything to be like Noah.

Only he wasn’t and he would never be.

He’d seen terrible things, he’d done terrible things, he was a terrible thing.

That would never change, but maybe he could keep from spreading his taint around.

He realized that as much as it pained him with envy, he didn’t want to snatch Noah’s juvenile streak, he didn’t want that soft look in his eyes to ever disappear.

“How about this? I’ll tell you all about it once it’s over.”

Noah pouted and crossed his arms petulantly over his chest. “What’s the fun in that? Fun-killer. You are, Adam Parrish, the Death of all Fun. You’re like… you’re like the Grim Reaper of Happiness! Instead of just sucking people’s souls, you suck the happy from their souls.”

Adam rolled his eyes and nodded dryly. “Thanks, man.”

Noah just let out another miffed breath before printing out the Gray man’s address and phone number for him. “He goes by several aliases so I couldn’t pull up a name, at least not a single one. As for numbers and addresses, there’s more than a couple in here, so it’ll be a bit of a hit and miss but the real ones should be veiled somewhere in there. It seems our guy is proactive; tries to keep a precaution in case badass hackers like me attempt to sniff around his stuff. Too bad he wasn’t cautious enough! There isn’t a man in record history who can outsmart The Private Wire!”

“Is that your new hacker alias?” Adam raised his eyebrows. 

“Yeah, I just thought of it like off the top of my head. Whoa, wait a second,” Noah said. “Let’s bippity boppity back it up right now. Is that a hickey I detect?”

Adam’s hand cautiously flew up to the right side of his neck where Ronan had bitten down into his skin only the night before. He’d upended his t-shirt collar to keep it from being visible, but perhaps he’d patted it back down out of habit at some point of the day without realizing it.

“I… _No_. Nah. Insect bite.”

“Yeah, man. Oldest excuse in the book. I’ve used it too. Along with birthmark, burn, temporary tattoo. I’ve even pulled the paintball story.” Noah said, with a suggestive smirk.

“Are you and Blue back together?” he added.

“God no,” Adam replied, half a phrase, half a choke. 

“Oh! Does that mean she’s single and ready to mingle? Because she’s very cute,” Noah asked, and Adam just shrugged but was glad for Noah’s tendency to skip past subjects like stepping stones because he didn’t bother grilling him and pretty much let the subject drop.

Frantically, Adam pulled the files and the new information he now had on the Gray man into his messenger bag. “Thanks again, Noah. For all your help. Frankly, I wouldn’t know where I’d be without you. I really should get going now though. Can’t be late for class.”

“I’m happy for you, I guess. It’s good to get laid.” Noah said, clapping him on his back as he escorted Adam back out towards the door.

“I’ll give you a call sometime,” Adam promised.

“You better! You owe me big time.”

“Yeah,” Adam smirked. “And lay off the weed, okay?”

“Dick,” Noah said, but he was smiling as he waved Adam goodbye.

* * *

Adam stared down at the heap of files he’d obtained from Noah, who’d been right about the string of false phone numbers and addresses.

It would have been so much easier if he hadn’t moved apartments ever since Ronan had paid him a bloodthirsty visit.

He’d had to cross out multiple before he’d managed to narrow it down to the most likely one, after which the Gray man had received a rousing phone call from one Mr. Arthur Millard, a scholar who just happened to be a cognoscente of Anglo-Saxon poetry.

He’d gone so far that he’d even gotten Noah to create a fake wiki page in his name so that something came up if the Gray man attempted to search him up. Adam’s voice acting skills had been put through the ringer as he carded through a number of foreign accents before settling for the standard british academic.

Ronan had almost doubled over laughing. “You sounded like someone had grabbed you by the balls. Did you learn all your british from Harry Potter?”

“I never had the time to go see those movies, actually.” Adam admitted, as Ronan’s expression of mirth morphed into disbelief. “Those movies are sick, man. We’ll have to fix that.” 

Despite Ronan’s teasing, the Gray man had bought the act and they’d decided to get together at six ‘o'clock at his apartment in the city to have a bit of a tête-à-tête.

Adam looked back up at Ronan, the other boy’s jaw was tight as a thorn. “If I’m forced to murder a man tonight, just remember I’m pinning it all on your ass and bolting this time.” He muttered, tone disgruntled as ever.

“Imagine my anxiety,” Adam replied. “I’m practically laying his body out on a silver platter for you by taking you to see him again.” 

Despite the light undercurrents in their tones, they were both equally nervous.

Adam knew it couldn’t be easy for Ronan to do this, that he’d agreed at all and was now driving straight to this man’s house made Adam both grateful and unnerved.

Ronan, who never trusted anyone, was trusting him now. Putting both his life and his faith on the line. There was a part of Adam that begrudgingly thought that it was only fair, since he was practically risking the same fundamental things going along with his mad plan and yet… Could he truly understand what must be going through Ronan’s head right now?

The Gray Man may not have killed with personal intent, but he’d still executed the crime.   
  
Ronan’s father was still dead, and it was still his fault. Adam couldn’t imagine what it must feel like, when he’d spent the majority of his life wishing his own father dead.

Would he have been relieved… triumphant even to finally have his dark, suffocating shadow off his back? Would there be any part of him at all that would feel sorrow? Adam decided that he’d lost his capability to feel sorrow for a man who’d beaten him senseless and thought it a recreational sport.

Maybe he hadn’t been a man at all.

It was what terrified Adam when he looked into the mirror, why sometimes he hated the margarita blue rim of his eyes, the light splattering of freckles across his cheeks and spine, that lazy Henrietta drawl that often snuck into his voice like a sinuous snake. He was the son of a monster and a robot. So what did that make him, some kind of warped hybrid?

Sometimes when he delved deep into himself and came up with nothing but that stiff ache that had rendered him lifeless, he thought that _human_ was too trivialized a word for him.

“Adam,”

Suddenly blood filled his mouth, his heart jackrabbited in his chest and he was in that little trailer park again, in the land of the lightless with his father’s weight pinning him down like an unforgiving avalanche to the cold, hard floor.

Nausea wormed its way through his insides and suddenly he felt like an intruder in a bodysuit, all his muscles liquefying, his bones not sitting right, like they’d grown awry, oblong.

“ _Adam_ ,” Ronan’s voice was an anchor lifting him out of the dark.

It was kind of admittedly nice to hear his name from his lips. Ronan almost always seemed to address him by his last name, like it would make things more impersonal in between them.

“Sorry,” he replied, ducking his head a little out of habit. “I don’t know where I go sometimes.”

Ronan’s jaw only clenched harder but he said nothing as he pulled the BMW out of the traffic and into a comparatively sparser lane before wheeling the car into the parking lot of the high-rise building where the Gray Man resided.  

Adam watched all the lights blur and give way to darkness as they entered the brooding confines of the parking lot.

He hated when he got like that. How he could be fine one second and hurtling through a seemingly endless hell the next, the ground opening up to reveal its vicious maw right beneath his feet, dropping him to his death.

The physical scars never burned half as much as the psychological ones. Those vile, invisible leeches intent on sucking at his brain until there was nothing left but mush.

He wouldn’t let himself fall. He wouldn’t let himself falter.

There was always something to come back to, and right now, it was that sharp yet starry limn in Ronan’s eyes.

“Fucking listen,” he intoned. “Don’t let me do anything that you wouldn’t.”

“Ronan Lynch,” Adam gasped, rather theatrically. “Is that regard I detect?”

“Not for my own life, but I can’t keep an eye on Matthew from prison.”

“I’ll hold you back.” Adam replied, even though he wasn’t sure there was a force on earth that could restrain him when his rage possessed him.

It didn't matter of course, what Ronan needed was reassurance, and a reminder that he believed in him. 

Ronan briefly skirted him before giving him one swift nod and storming out of the car. Adam followed quietly, his stomach tightening as his mind projected a horror reel of all the possible nightmare scenarios that could ensue if this meeting went haywire.

The lobby that housed the elevators was pristine and smelled like artificial flowers. It was unsettling to imagine that a murderer walked these plasticky dollhouse halls, that one lived here. When the lift came, they piled in. Ronan hit the button for the floor to the Gray Man’s residence and the number four lit up.

They were quiet as they went, neither boy quite in the mood to talk.

As the elevator doors rumbled open, Adam took a deep breath, tried his best to detangle the knot in his belly and pushed forward with Ronan trailing closely behind.

He knocked twice and tried once again, unsuccessfully, to calm his pouncing nerves.

He rolled his shoulders and flexed his fingers. What if he just bolted or shut the door right in their faces or pulled a gun on them? This was, potentially, a man who paid his taxes off blood money.

For the upteenth time since Adam had met Ronan he posed himself the same existential question. What am I doing here? _What am I doing here?_ Knocking on a killer’s door?

When the door opened and the surprisingly immaculate looking man in front of him smiled in anticipating greeting, Adam thought for sure that they were goners.

Ronan returned the smile with his own sardonic one. The kind that was no feeling and all teeth.

“Boys,” he said. “The renowned Arthur Millard, I presume. As long as we can all agree to be civil and you don’t pull another weapon on me... Would you like to come in?”

Adam instinctively raised his hands in surrender, but Ronan merely shrugged, heavy thunderheads settling behind his eyes. “You still recuperating from the last time I paid you a visit, old man?”

The Gray Man took Ronan’s mockery in stride. “I just don’t invite the thought of getting blood on my newly steam cleaned carpet.”

There was a bladed edge beneath the robotic civility that reflected both in his words and on his face. Adam could instantly believe he wasn’t a man to be trifled with.

He was dressed in all greys to match his peculiar name and looked like he might belong to a car rental company, even as the slicked back quiff of his hair, the suspenders trapping his chest and the wrinkles under his eyes suggested intellectual. The killer was in the eyes, every blink intended; a promise of bloodshed. His jaw, however, hung loose and tired, as if he’d lost himself along this path of bones he’d paved for himself.

 _A morally questionable patch of grey indeed._ Adam thought, silently wondering if he could use him as a specimen to base one of his theses off of.

“How did you know?” Adam managed, a little dumbfounded, still hovering beyond the threshold of his door, with Ronan an angry whirlwind of ignitable energy brimming behind his shoulder.

“Funny thing about people who’ve been in the game as long as I have. We always manage to stay one step ahead. It’s as much of a curse as it is a boon, I assure you. Gets boring after awhile, to be able to plot your fellow chess player’s every move even with eyes closed.”

He heard Ronan sneer behind him, his mouth close enough to his ear that Adam could feel his breath warm against it, making a prickle skid up his spine.

“It was a commendable swindle kid, I’ll give you that. Hardly anyone has managed to get past the firewalls I have put up in my privacy and your tall tale was even half convincing. Except for the fact that I know of every single man who has ever shown even the remotest passing interest in Anglo-Saxon affairs by heart and in four distinct languages.”

“So why are you indulging us?” Adam was quick to ask, despite the way his heart was skipping beats. “I knew the what. I didn’t know the who,” he said, his gaze slipping past Adam, presumably to meet Ronan’s incendiary one.

“Now,” he said. “Have you come to try to kill me again? Because that would truly disrupt my evening plans.”

Before Ronan could open his sailor’s mouth, Adam said. “We’ve come with a proposal.”

The Gray Man pursed his lip in thought before nodding his head once and stepping aside to let them in.

Adam felt particularly unhappy about sauntering straight into such a dangerous man’s abode, like a character from a horror movie that was just begging to be killed. He did it anyway, his suspicions about the Gray Man’s civility ringing true as he took in the embroidered pillow sets, the peculiar little antiques that lined the shelves, and the television box set. It looked more like somebody’s grandmother’s house than the home of a professional killer.

Adam flopped down on one of the sofas at the Gray Man’s insistence and Ronan took up post by the wall, unable or uninterested in sitting anywhere. In fact, he looked careful not to touch anything in the house, as if every inch of it might be coated in flesh-eating bacteria.

Adam couldn’t help but notice how strange he looked in his all-black outfit against the sea-green wallpaper, as if he was the only authentic thing in the room and everything else was a mirage, a projection of some sort, as if he was a shark on land.

The Gray Man sat down on the couch opposite to him and folded his fingers in his lap. If he was wary or thought that either of them was a threat, he didn’t show it. He looked calm, composed, even mellow. To Adam however, it was almost as arrogant as one of Ronan’s mood swings. He couldn’t help but wonder if he killed all those people with that same stoic countenance.

The thought angered Adam, made him feel like he’d swallowed a shot of battery acid.

“Go on. I’m all ears.” He announced, meeting Adam’s eyes.

Adam wanted to focus on how he was going to phrase this, but the tension in the room was buoyant enough to drown in and it bounced off from Ronan to the Gray Man and then back again, like the world’s cringiest echo.

It was as if both men in the room had an invisible gun pointed at each other and Adam was the fly on the wall.

“This is about your employer.” Adam finally said. “We want to stop him.”

“By stop him you mean kill him.”

“Not exactly.” There was a smirk on Ronan’s face, but his voice was laced in arctic ice.

“I do not work for Colin Greenmantle anymore. In fact, I do not even know where he is. I’m afraid that I cannot help you.”

“It doesn’t matter if you still work for him or not. Why don’t you just hear us out?” Adam said.

“I cannot help you.” He repeated.

“But you’re a hitman.” Adam protested.

“ _Reformed_ hitman,” he corrected. “And I do not participate in such vulgarities anymore.”

“Your fucking existence is a vulgarity. The best thing you could do for the world now is to just off yourself.”

“ _Ronan_ ,” Adam hissed between his teeth.

The Gray Man shrugged, unruffled. “We all have our reasons. Revenge is nothing but a mere means to an end. It is an unnecessary toil and turmoil. Think of it as a broken bit of glass. You can cut yourself with it, you can even wield it as a weapon, but you cannot put it back together and at the end of the day, all it does is make someone bleed.”

“Says the killer,” snapped Ronan. “Hypocrite.”

“Mr. Lynch -” The Gray Man started.

“We’ve come up with a plan,” Adam cut in, to spare them all the antagonism. “All we need is for you to take a look at it and help us tweak it in our favor. Give us all the dirt you’ve gathered on him and then we can all be on our merry ways.”

“What makes you think I know anything about Colin?”

Now Adam smiled. “You’re a smart man. You wouldn’t hop aboard a train without scrutinizing each and every compartment thoroughly and then once again for good measure.”

The Gray Man was quiet a long moment. “Do you know what neologisms are? In Anglo-Saxon poetry, they’re more popularly referred to as kennings. It is putting two words together to create heightened adjectives. Do you know what I see happening when a vengeance-blind child like you attempts to depose a ruthless killer who has the tolerance for nothing and no-one? Disorder. Death. Dismay. Putting you two together would elicit no heightened adjective, only chaos.”

“I am _not_ a child.” Ronan’s tone had gotten freakishly low and Adam was afraid his eyes would bulge out of their sockets.

The Gray Man on the other hand, looked a bit disappointed. “Truly? _That_ is all you got from what I just said?”

“Look. Even if your end game is not to kill the man, Colin Greenmantle is untouchable,” the Gray Man said. He spread his fingers wide, hand hanging in the air. “He is a spider clinging in a web. Every leg touches a thread, and if anything happens to the spider, hell rains down.”

Ronan said, “I already lived through hell.”

“You have no idea what hell is,” the Gray man replied, but not unkindly. “Do you think you’re the first son to want revenge? Do you think your father was the first he had killed? And yet Greenmantle is alive and untouched. Because we all know how it works. Before I disassociated myself, he would have attached sixteen little threads to people like me, to computer programs, to bank accounts. The spider falters, the web twitches, suddenly your accounts are wiped clean, your younger brother becomes an amputee, your older brother dies behind the wheel of a car in Chicago. All your friends, anyone who ever showed you any appreciation start to go off like a string of bombs.” He explained.

Before Adam could even anticipate what was happening, Ronan was crossing the length of the room and charging at the other man.

Adam’s heart bottomed out as he glimpsed the silver winking sheen of a knife appear like a magic trick in between them. Ronan, uncaring, had the Gray Man pinned against the couch, his hand blocking his windpipe.

Adam shot up on unsteady knees, but before he could say anything, the Gray Man had turned the tables on him, twisting Ronan’s free arm until it rested at an unnatural angle all the way behind his back. If Ronan felt the pain, he didn’t acknowledge it, still seething.

“Don’t make me use this,” the Gray Man said, warningly. “I mean it in the sincerest way when I say I do not want to hurt you.”

Adam suddenly realized that he could hold his own in a fight, and that he’d probably let Ronan get as many beatings in as he did because a part of him thought that after all these years of causing pain, he’d deserved to take the brunt of it. The notion didn’t make Adam any more sympathetic to the Gray Man’s plight, but it was a breed of regret and self-loathing that he could understand.

The look Ronan shot him made Adam want to crawl out of his own skin, but it was obvious that his immobilizing stares didn’t have the same effect on the Gray Man.

There was something cold and exhausted in his manner, but his eyes betrayed no emotion. Adam thought that there was something particularly gruesome about a man who could look the person he had wronged right in the eye and feel nothing, or at least pretend to feel nothing.

It was different even from his father’s monster, who was all metallic glares and hateful bullet-words. He’d always looked down on Adam, as if his ability to deliver pain made him powerful somehow, a higher being. The truth, that Adam had been too much of a wimpy child to see back then, was in the eyes.

There had been something dead in his eyes that only came alive when he was being the worst version of himself. Hurting everyone around him either with his words or his actions or a cruel combo of both. Maybe his father had been self-projecting all along, punishing Adam for his own mistakes, his own regrets. Adam’s body a crypt he could coerce all his dead into with just a swing and a push. Maybe his father was the weak one, the coward, even if Adam had been the one receiving the blows.

The next thing Adam knew he had his own arms wrapped around Ronan’s torso as he restrained him. “ _Don’t_ ,” he hissed, against Ronan’s face, just as Ronan tore himself away. To his relief though, he didn’t advance. Instead, he took a reluctant step back.

“Now,” Adam said, meeting the Gray Man’s eyes. “What if I told you we have a way to decimate the spider’s web entirely?”

The expression on the Gray Man’s face shifted from mild irritation to genuine intrigue and by the time they’d finished explaining their plan, they’d managed to sway him and get from him exactly what they’d needed.

“For the record,” he said, just as they were making their leave. “I am sorry about your father. He was just another mark to me and I know that does not help nor does it bring you any semblance of peace. However, it would be noble of you to accept my apology anyway, so that I may ease my own conscience if nothing else.”

Ronan pretended to consider for a millisecond. “Declined,” he said, before turning on his heel and bounding down the stairs instead of bothering with the elevator. 

 _There's a special place in hell reserved for people like this,_ Adam thought, watching the Gray Man's neutral expression. 

“Justified,” the Gray Man said, with a carefree shrug.

Adam heaved a sigh, thanked the Gray Man for his cooperation, and followed Ronan down. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- the chapter name is supposed to be a dumb pun, and also a good song by Emmit Fenn!  
> \- noah!!! yeah. i couldn't quite resist. i think i made him extra alive & animated bc i'm very bitter about what became of him in the books and i didn't want him to meet a similar fate here. so he's very much alive. hacktivist noah? does it fit? idk. do i care? apparently not. xD  
> \- borrowed a couple snippets from the book from the gangsey's conversation with the Gray Man, all credit obviously goes to maggie and i don't claim it to be my work.  
> \- thank you so much for reading and please, please comment. i know it's annoying but it literally takes two minutes and i work very hard on these chapters. i honestly feel rather demotivated when i post a chapter and the comment quota is weak, so please, if you enjoy this story at all, just leave me a few words letting me know. it's all i ask.  
> \- thank you for reading and i'll see you soon <33


	17. Is There A Ghost

_"You flicker. I cannot touch you. I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns." - Sylvia Plath_

* * *

They had gotten exactly what they wanted out of the meeting even though the confrontation between them had gone about as smoothly as Adam had expected, which was of course, not particularly smooth at all.

Still, Adam considered this a win, except Ronan was acting like they’d lost everything.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Ronan spat, leaning against one of the walls in the parking lot and pressing a hand into his stomach.

Adam asked the most futile question that came to his mind. “You okay?”

Ronan didn’t reply but wheeled away from the wall and loaded himself like a bullet into his car.

Adam could tell Ronan was unhinged by the way his hands gripped the steering wheel as they made their way back and the tight set of his shoulders. How he turned up the stereo volume to max to keep Adam from even attempting at conversation and the way he kept steadily avoiding his gaze everytime Adam dared to look his way.

“Hey,” he said, after a while. “You did good, okay? You did good.”

Ronan didn’t seem to hear him. 

Adam’s mind was alight with warring flames. He wasn’t quite sure what to do. Sometimes, when Ronan was like this, being around him became as precarious as trying to saunter across hot coals. If he took things too slow, he would burn and if he took things too fast, he would fall. 

Adam just sat quietly and attempted to decode his emotions. For once, Incendiary as Ronan was, Adam didn’t think it was anger, or at least not anger alone. It wasn’t sorrow either. Or contempt.

It was unsettling as the dead sea, an eerie calm wearing his features like a circus mask. There was tension unfolding inside him that left his posture stiff and wound up.

Ronan’s eyes were glazed and intent, but focused on nothing in particular except for the winding road ahead.

Adam frowned when they skipped past the turn they had to take to get home.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Is it going to be a problem for you? I could drop you off at the curb.”

“Depends on where we’re _going_.”

“I need to blow off some steam.”

“You’re not racing again.” Adam snapped, resolute.

Ronan’s smile was cold and felt like a gutting.

“Don’t pretend like it didn’t get your juices flowing last time.”

“The only thing that could’ve possibly been flowing was our blood. It’s reckless and stupid and you’re not going to go skidding off the rails every time you’re feeling angsty.”

Ronan cursed under his breath, in that poetic way that sounded so much softer than anything else that came out of his mouth. The words weirdly elegant, their edges bladed katanas. His voice dark honey on the hottest summer day.

He continued to drive until they reached a deserted dirt road over an hour away from Ronan’s neighborhood and then he was pumping the accelerator, tearing through the muddied route like he was attempting to split it in two. Drifting the car. Trying to get the car to fly. Adam gasped silently as the inertia pinned him to the spine of the car seat with brutal force.

“ _This_ is not what I meant when I said let’s not race.”

“Loophole,” Ronan shrugged as they continued to gain momentum and he let the windows down to either side. The sudden gust of cold night air made Adam’s skin prickle jarringly.

The stars whirred hypnotically above them, tires skid, squealing against the rugged embroidery of the dirt like the animal cries of nocturnal creatures, his heart was a speedbump stuttering in his chest.

“How does this help?” his question was lost to the wind and it seemed Ronan’s soul had left his body or drifted up into the night sky. His icy eyes were molten glass, his knuckles white against the dark leather of the steering wheel, his lips parted slightly in exhilaration or some terrible form of pleasure.

He’d abandoned his jacket in the back seat as soon as they’d left the Gray Man’s place and Adam had to make a conscious effort to keep from staring at the muscles working in his biceps, the way the light caught off his shoulders, the strong veins beneath his arms, that single vein in his neck that always seemed to jut out like a sore stem whenever he got riled up.

This dangerous feat they’d somehow managed to accomplish, the low, gas-eating growl of the BMW’s heating engine and that malicious twist in Ronan’s lips.

It all made Adam feel a little drunk. A little out of order. Like someone had shoved a hand through his body and rearranged all his bones, not necessarily in a way that felt wrong, but certainly askew.

They took about seven circles around the road, the car dragging and tilting at dangerous angles, sending the wheels snarling and stirring up the dirt as Ronan ground the accelerators, the BMW sailing smooth as a rowboat across calm waters.

By the time he’d finally skid the car to a grinding holt, they were both out of breath and laughing. There was nothing funny about the laughter. It was hysterical, dead-behind-the-ribs laughter.

The kind of laughter that was choked out of you when you escaped a near-death situation unscathed or had too much to drink.

When they managed to quiet down, Adam looked at Ronan. As usual, Ronan was already looking at him, his expression expertly resigned once more, tucked back into darker folds.

Adam waited for him to say something, but when he remained quiet, he took it upon himself to break the breathless silence.

“Did that theatrical performance make you feel any better?”

“It made me feel.” Ronan didn’t elaborate, his mouth pulling into a thin line.

Adam let out a withering breath, watching Ronan’s lashes flirt with the low moonlight, how Adam could almost see the pulse beating at the base of his throat, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed slightly. Since they’d cut the stereo off, the only sounds were their own. Ronan’s breaths came short and quick while Adam was breathing quieter on purpose.

There was a stirring again, a lazy river of heat pooling at the bottom of his stomach, the slight and shamefully familiar tug beneath his navel.

Adam stared down at where his hands had been gripping at the edges of his seat and then at Ronan’s hands, which had dropped from the steering wheel to rest on either of his thighs.

Ronan’s expression had gone cold as a cadaver. 

“Talk to me,” Adam prompted quietly.

“What’s there to talk about?”

Adam sighed, before lifting a ginger hand towards Ronan’s and brushing his knuckles ever-so softly against Ronan’s in a reassuring gesture as he allowed his fingers to crawl into the spaces between Ronan’s, who went scary still under his touch.

Ronan’s eyes flew up to his, incredulous and slightly annoyed. Adam ignored the uncertainty building inside him and locked their fingers together. Ronan’s skin was warm against his.

It was like examining a strangle puzzle that shouldn’t fit together but somehow did anyway, defying all laws of space and time. Adam let his thumb brush experimentally against Ronan’s skin and watched him carefully.

Ronan’s nostrils flared a little and Adam watched his throat shift as he swallowed hard.

“You know, there are other ways to blow off steam.” Adam drawled, lowly, even as every sane part of his brain was yelling at him to reel it in and stop kidding himself.

He didn’t know what he was trying to achieve, he only knew that he wanted to distract Ronan for long enough to unwound this newfangled tension that had built in him. For long enough to at least temporarily abate whatever had been gnawing at his skin since their meeting with the Gray Man.

Adam’s breath hitched in his throat as he reached up to lightly cup Ronan’s jaw, running his thumb light as moth-wings over the sparse stubble there. When his chin tilted to meet Ronan’s eyes, his pupils were blown wide with a hunger Adam wondered might be mirrored in his own.

Ronan was an exclamation point and Adam felt like a question mark. Would they stray the line? Had they already strayed it that night Adam had thought he would float up into the ceiling and dissolve beneath the steel press of Ronan’s hands?

The car was cool and yet Adam was wrecked with an unspeakable heat. He hoped Ronan couldn’t hear how loudly his heart was beating.  
  
Ronan blinked, sucked in a sharp breath and then -  
  
“Not now, Parrish,” he growled, gruffly, curling his free hand over Adam’s and wresting out of his grip. Adam dropped his other hand as well and inched away as if he’d been struck, the heat turning to poisonous stones in his gut. His veins going cold.

Ronan’s lower lip twitched as he shifted gears and slammed the gas pedal once again. Adam couldn’t bring himself to say anything after that, so he rested his forehead against the window and let his thoughts drift, trying not to think about the hurt that was spreading behind his ribs.

_Fuck him. He shouldn’t be making me feel this way anyway. He’s derailed enough of my life as it is, I don’t need this, I don’t need this. I’m better than this. I’m stronger than this._

He leaned his body as far away from Ronan as he could get in the compact space of the vehicle and closed his eyes. He coerced his brain into idling to numb static as he felt himself slowly slipping from reality. Sleep spreading over him like a much-needed security blanket.

He woke up with a jolt when Ronan slammed the brakes a little too hard as they pulled into the parking lot of an apocalyptically lit diner just adjacent to the freeway.

“Figured we’d grab something to eat before we got home,” Ronan muttered, in way of explanation when Adam fixed him with a questioning gaze. Adam just nodded and followed him out of the car. Once they were in, Ronan went to place their orders while Adam secured a booth at the far end of the restaurant.

When Ronan returned, it was with a pair of menus and a couple of cokes. Adam eyed the menu, his gaze immediately settling on the cheapest available meal as he wrapped his fingers around the soda can, the frigid chill of it refreshing against his skin. He popped it open, took a sip and wiped the condensation off on his jeans.  
  
Once they’d placed their orders and the cheery looking waitress had skippered off after regaling them with an annoyingly lengthy list of the day’s specials, he kept his head bowed and his eyes ever-darting; so that he was looking at everything except for Ronan Lynch.

“Man,” Ronan said, as he began to concentratedly fill in a crossword puzzle on an activity sheet using the pencil the diner provided for kiddie customers. “I used to love these kinds of puzzles growing up. Especially the crosswords and the spot-the-differences. I rocked that shit.”

When Adam didn’t reply, Ronan just kept going. “Declan always pretended to be too grown up to bother with them and Matthew just tried to swallow the graphite out of all the pencils.” Adam stared out the window at passerby cars speedily lighting up the highway and the trees billowing gently in the wind.

Ronan anxiously drummed his knuckles over the table. “I guess seeing him dredged all the horrid memories right back fucking up.” He admitted, quietly.

Adam heard a little girl laugh from somewhere behind him and turned over his shoulder to look. One of the waitresses dropped a coffee mug and cursed under her breath before crouching down to pick it up.

Ronan clenched his fists. “Thank you,” his tone was reserved, unfamiliar, like the words themselves were a wild concept he’d heard about but never truly understood. “For restraining me back there. You were the only thing keeping me from slamming his smug ass high-strung head into the fucking wall.”

At this, Adam looked at him, his eyes finally finding Ronan’s again. There was a quiet plea in those furling blue irises of his that made Adam bite into his cheek.

Before Adam could say anything, the waitress swarmed them, flashing them both a dainty, almost flirtatious smile as she leaned down with a tray of plates. Adam took in everything Ronan had ordered. There seemed to be more food than their table could occupy.

Adam frowned at the onion rings, the french fries, the cheese toast and all the various dips that came along with their burgers. “What the hell, Ronan?”

Ronan shrugged, “I haven’t eaten anything since lunch, but here. Have some. I didn’t think the portions would be so fucking huge.” He said, before digging in.

Adam gawked back down at the mouth-wateringly wide array of snacks. He hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, either, but he couldn’t pay for all this. Though he had a suspicious feeling Ronan had that covered.

Adam only helped him clear his plates because he didn’t like the idea of leaving leftovers. They ate, mostly in silence, but Ronan’s gaze continued to flitter up over him and away.

“Are you seriously mad because I didn’t want to fool around then?” Ronan finally asked, Adam met his eyes, appalled at the slightest suggestion. He didn’t know why he was mad. He just was. His heart had shrunk behind his ribcage. He was tired. He just wanted this day to be over. So he said nothing, refusing to bend.

“Somebody can’t handle rejection well.” Ronan mocked, in a nauseatingly cheery voice.

“Actually,” Adam snapped, bitterly. “I happen to handle it exceptionally well. I’ve been unwanted all my life.”

He didn’t mean to sound like he was complaining, he was just stating the facts. Birds no longer chirped in his ear when it came to professionalism in Ronan’s very special case.

It was too late at this point. The lines had been drawn and blown to dust. Time and time again.

Sometimes he got like this, moody and annoyed. His brain just decided it’d had enough and there was nothing Adam could do about it.

Sometimes, sadness just snuck up on him. A poltergeist possessing the mind.

“Oh. You feeling sorry for yourself, Parrish? Is that what’s happening right now? Should I give you a moment to wipe your tears?”

“Go to hell.” Adam retorted, his jaw clenching. He almost crushed the bread he’d been holding between his fingers. People like Ronan would never understand, and people like Adam would never bother to explain. That was just the way it was, the way it was always going to be.

Ronan’s face fell. “Look… I didn’t mean to -”

“Save it.” Adam sniped.

Ronan frowned a moment, but obediently dropped it. “You know,” his voice was low when he spoke. “That night we went to Kavinsky’s substance party. He told me that maybe it’s a good thing that my parents are too dead to witness the wreck I’ve become.”

Adam’s eyes flashed up to meet his. He wasn’t going to emotionally blackmail Adam into not being upset with him if that’s what he was attempting to do.

“Sometimes I think he’s right.” Ronan admitted, then, slowly. His head dipped as if he was mourning the burger he’d just ingested.

Adam’s mouth twitched. “He says things like that because he’s a pompous attention seeker.”

Ronan frowned. “Hurting other people, getting under their skin, it validates him in a way. Makes him feel like he has an effect on a world that doesn’t give two shits about him.” Adam explained.

“Fucking yeah. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”

“It doesn’t mean he’s right either.”

“What do you think?” Ronan asked.

“Oh. Suddenly you care?” Adam couldn’t help it.

“You know what. Forget I asked, Parrish.”

“Fine.”  
  
Quiet fell over them once again.

“We should get this Greenmantle thing over with sooner rather than later,” Adam finally suggested, in between bites. Partially to evade the tension. Partially because the silence was eating him up. Partially because the situation demanded a subject change. “I mean… You’ll need to dream up the false evidence.”

Ronan’s mouth twisted. “I know.”

“There’s only a week left and then I’m not legally obligated to you anymore.”

If the words pinched, Ronan didn’t show it, which made Adam equal parts amused, disappointed and angered. There was a part of him that was hoping he could land a jab that actually made Ronan cave in, at least a little bit.

“Don’t worry. You did your job. You abided to the contract. I’ll dream it up tomorrow. We’ll kick into gear and then you can go birdy bye bye.” Ronan snapped, his words betraying no emotion.

“Great.” Adam replied, sourly. He took one last, languid sip of his soda and crunched the empty can in his fist. It creaked slightly under the pressure as he placed its corpse back on the table.

Once they’d finished up and handled the bill, they loaded back into the car and headed straight home.

They made the drive in tomb silence. The kind of silence that settled like dusk over the chest and brought forth nightmares.

Adam still felt confused and sullen and dismayed and he wasn’t quite sure why. _I thought he wanted this._ But of course he didn’t, the more rational side of his brain lit up, _I was nothing but a curiosity and now that I’ve gone ahead and given him what he wants he doesn’t feel it anymore. Curiosity curbed._

Adam had known this would happen, but he hadn’t truly thought Ronan would grow bored of him _this_ quickly.

It would be insulting, if it wasn’t for the best. And it was probably for the best anyway.

Nobody ever gave him anything without wanting something in return. His body was a monetary transaction, a pit stop and never the destination, a crash test dummy for car crash enthusiasts. Not to mention it didn’t feel right anymore. Accepting money from the family member of someone he’d gotten intimate with.

He’d gone against his own principals and let himself down. Where had he gotten so lost? When had he fallen so far down the rabbit hole that he couldn’t even see the light of day anymore without leaping? How had he let himself indulge this, encourage it even?

This was a blow on his dignity and his pride and it was making him question everything.

What happened to earning his place in the spotlight on his own merit? Was he truly even deserving of this money at this point? Every question he asked himself made him sink further and further into the car seat and left him feeling like he’d taken a jackhammer to the head.

How had he ever convinced himself that this was okay? If anything went wrong now, would he ever be able to forgive himself?

When they got home, Adam was the first to trudge back up to the house. He had to reluctantly wait back for Ronan, who had the keys in his jean pocket. Ronan slithered up to him, dug through his pocket for an endless minute and finally produced them, stepping in front of Adam to promptly jam them into the keyhole.

As soon as the door clicked open, they poured in. Adam shut the door behind them and began to head upstairs. He needed a scalding shower and maybe an aspirin but Ronan cornered him in the hallway, pressing a large hand over his ribs; wedging him in between his body and the wall.

Adam was startled almost into choking, his breath coming out in stuttering gasps before he narrowed his eyes at the other boy.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he hated that horrid Henrietta-grit in his voice that reminded him so painfully of his father but he couldn’t quite help it either.

_“_ _Let go of me.”_

“Wait,” Ronan leaned in, his breath smelling of salted chips and spicy dip. “I’m sorry,” he whispered against Adam’s lips.

Adam stilled and Ronan raised his other arm to skim the side of Adam’s face, running his fingers over his temple to his chin and then back again to gently cup his cheek.

“Can I?” the words were barely words.

Adam swallowed hard, his heart had begun to race in his chest and he was afraid Ronan could feel it berserkly beating itself to death beneath his palm.

Without thinking, he nodded slowly and the next thing he knew his wrists were being dragged and pinned up over his head and hot lips pressed heavy enough against his to cut off his air.

Ronan’s tongue roughly shoved into his mouth, Adam inhaled sharply through his nose and let out a low grunt. The kisses were raw and shabby and desperate. It was an urgency like nothing he’d felt in his life. An urgency aligned with tongues and teeth and colossally mashing mouths.

The hard press of Ronan’s body against his made his cock suddenly tighten. Adam was taken by surprise. Could Ronan really not want him when he was kissing him like he was the only thing that he _did_ want? It made no sense.

Ronan pulled away from his lips to nuzzle Adam’s strained neck. “I’m sorry,” he reverently repeated, before pressing a string of bleeding kisses up over Adam’s collarbone.

He could feel Ronan’s chest heaving against his, almost hear the rushing in his veins or maybe it was just the rushing in his own. He couldn’t tell. Ronan’s eyes took him in fervently, like he was a fleeting dream. His lips worked him like he was afraid Adam would disappear from under him, melt like water or vanish like the moon.

When Ronan leaned back up again, he bit hard enough into Adam’s lips to draw blood, and when the slight metallic taste filled his mouth, Adam sucked in a dazed breath as Ronan dropped his wrists in favor of tugging at the hem of Adam’s shirt. 

Just as Ronan’s hands began to roam the expanse of his stomach, Adam shoved him back with a feral force, making him stumble backwards until his spine met the opposite wall. Ronan’s swollen lips twitched but Adam swallowed whatever he was going to say with a pressuring and over-eager kiss of his own as he ran his hands down Ronan’s idling arms. Adam smiled sardonically against Ronan’s jaw when he managed to pull a strangled noise out of him.

He pulled away then and gave Ronan’s t-shirt collar a violent tug. “Off,” he ordered gruffly.  
  
Ronan stared at him for one hard moment, his eyes going void-dark, but then he was pulling it off in one smooth motion. Adam yanked his own shirt over his head and dropped it at their feet, letting his eyes wander over Ronan’s chest and his hardened nipples before crashing back into Ronan and pivoting his hips against his.

Adam could tell Ronan was trying to hide how laboured his breathing had gotten as Adam pressed a haphazard string of smitten kisses down his chest and abdomen.

Adam could feel Ronan’s stiffened erection against his pants’ legs, and his own was causing a painful riot beneath his waistline. Ronan let his fingers slip into the soft of Adam’s hair and every nerve-ending inside him seemed to ignite with desire. He wanted to forget about everything and just kiss Ronan into oblivion. When their mouths met again, they were momentarily fools under the enchanting thrill of the moment.

There was a part of Adam that wanted to explore further, learn all the right touches to make Ronan shudder, locate wherever he gave way like a mudslide to sun, hear his name escape like a cry from his lips. He wanted to learn this ancient and alien language of touch. He wanted to learn it with his mouth and Ronan’s eyes rapt on his.

There was a part of Adam that needed to be burned to nothing beneath Ronan’s touch.

So it was rather inconvenient when Ronan carefully leaned out of his next kiss, especially when Adam’s fingers had barely slipped under Ronan’s waistband. Ronan took a deep breath and wrapped his arms around Adam’s neck before reassuring him with one more quick, vehement kiss.

When he took his mouth away, their bodies were entangled, Ronan’s bare spine still pressed into the wall.

“I want you, dickhead. Don’t get all kicked puppy on me again, okay?” he clarified, at the lightly wounded look in Adam’s eyes. “Now’s just not a good time,” he added.

The words were like a bucket of ice water to the head, a plunge back into the nefarious depths of their sodden reality.

Adam sighed and ran a ghost of a finger over the ridges of Ronan’s face, in between his eyes, over his nose. When he got close to his mouth Ronan made as if to bite him and Adam let out a soundless laugh. A reverberation that seemed to rumble in both their chests.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Be honest.”

“You’re the one with your pants on fire,” Ronan said, with a wicked twist of the lips. “And I don’t mean only metaphorically.” He said, his gaze dropping to where their thighs still met.

“Asshole,” Adam muttered.

“No,” he then admitted. It was simple and lacked the gravity that Adam would have thought he would feel the first time he truly made Ronan open up to him. It almost felt anti-climactic, and yet the haunted look in his eyes was way worse than any blow Adam had ever received.  

So Adam gently pulled away. "What do you need?"

"Some time to think."

"I understand."

"Really? No we-need-to-let-our-emotions-out-on-the-table therapy bullshit?" 

Adam shrugged. "Sometimes, we just need to work things out in our own heads before we lay our souls bare." 

Ronan smirked. "I promise I'll get back to you on the subject of laying things bare." He said.

"I thought you hated promises."

"Sometimes you're too smart-mouthed for your own good. You know that, Parrish?"

Adam grinned softly before biting his lip. "Go give yourself some time, man. I'll see you in a bit. Okay?"

Ronan searched his expression for a lie, and when he found no hints of dishonesty, he offered him a small nod and trudged off to his bedroom.

Adam took a deep breath and leaned up against the wall he'd only just been making out against. Ronan's presence seemed to linger like a heated ghost even after he'd left a room.

His skin still felt like a fever as he pulled his shirt back on, his bones ticking time bombs wrought like steel beneath.

He was almost ashamed of himself, how easily he'd gone from fuming at Ronan to wanting to eat him alive.

All this while, he'd been trying not to acknowledge it at all. As if it was just something he could bury, something he could lock up inside himself before throwing away the key. But it bugged him, like an itch, like a flame. What was it that they were doing? 

First Ronan claimed he couldn't stand him, then he kissed him, then he gave him a hand job but slammed the door on him after. Today he'd gone from rejecting his advances to initiating his own.

It was all so confusing. It left him feeling wrangled, as if he'd just lost the same war he'd been waging all his life, for the umpteenth time. 

He ran an anxious hand through his hair. The corridor was muddled with shadows and Adam's mind continued to whirl. He was just about to head to his own room to finish up on some coursework when his phone buzzed.

Adam didn't even have to check the caller ID to know that it was Blue Sargent calling. 

"Perfect timing," he muttered, as he pressed the phone to his good ear.

"Why? Are you in mortal peril or something?" asked the snarky voice on the other end of the line.

"Sort of?" Adam replied, earnestly.

"Seriously? Well in that case, maybe I _do_ have that hereditary sixth sense after all and I was just a late bloomer. What's up?" 

"What are you doing right now?" Adam asked, his thoughts taking off ahead of him. 

"Plotting the damnation of every man who says something sexist to me while I'm waiting his table, of course. Why?" Blue replied.

"I was thinking maybe we could talk in person."

"Oh, oh. So it's _that_ kind of peril. I get it. Alright. I just finished up my shift at Nino's. Where do you want to meet?"

"I'll text you the address."

"Can you give me a teeny weeny wittle hint about what you want to talk about?" she asked in a honey-sweet and hopeful voice.

"No."

"Adam, please! I'm not sure if I'll even be able to make it to your house without incident if I'm too busy turning into this blob of combustible curiosity."

"Sorry."

"Ugh! You're gonna regret this! Regret, I tell you! You messed with the wrong witch." She muttered, theatrically. 

The side of Adam's mouth tugged up. "You're not a witch, Blue."

"How do you know I'm not? How do you know I'm not sticking pins in your voodoo doll right now?"

"Because I have more faith in you than that."

"For shame. You know what, fine. But you're going to have to deal with my wrath when I get there."

"I'm already trembling in my boots. See you soon, Blue." 

He couldn't quite get rid of the smile that snuck up his face as he cut the phone and punched in Ronan's address. Leave it to Blue to brighten his mood. He wasn't going to call her into the house of course, but he figured they could just sit outside by the steps and talk. He needed to get this off his chest. He needed to tell _someone_.

There was a part of him that was mortified at the thought of putting into words everything that'd transpired between him and Ronan, to make it real and susceptible to judgement, but Blue had always been wise when it came to things like these, not to mention a strangely easy person to talk to.

He'd never been very good at communicating with people, but perhaps a second unbiased opinion might help him clear all the clutter in his head.

He met Blue outside about twenty-minutes later. The low moon was ringed with a sparse spiral of a cloud, making it appear as if it were wearing a hullahoop. The sky was a battle of smog and light, withering stars. It'd gotten slightly chilly again, so he'd pulled one of Ronan's jumpers on to keep from the cold since his own was still in the wash. It smelled like forests and that rich, intoxicating cologne Adam had unconsciously begun to associate with Ronan. The fact that the thing was branded made Blue stop short the second she laid eyes on him.

"That's a really nice jumper you've got on. Where'd you pick it up? Fuckboy Central? Oh, wait. It's Abercrombie & Fitch, isn't it?"

Adam rolled his eyes. "I don't know what brand it is. It's Ronan's." 

Blue narrowed her own. _"It's Ronan's?_ Adam, you're just full of surprises today."

He actually had to scoff beneath his breath. "Just wait until you hear what I have to say next."

"Yeah. About that. Look. I bit off all my nails in my tireless quest to figure out what it is that you wanted to talk to me about. No thanks to you!" she said, stalling her bike before sauntering over to him and punching him softly in the arm. 

She was dressed in bright polka-dotted knee highs and a burning yellow dress with a white, studded collar. Adam thought she looked a little bit like a light bulb. An incredibly cute light bulb.

It was almost Gansey levels of eye-straining colors. Maybe those two really were made for each other, despite their obvious differences. 

She leaned against the cool railing as Adam seated himself on one of the stairs by her feet. She broke into a grin as he stared up at her. 

"Okay. Wait! Before you tell me. Let me take a wild guess. You're pregnant."

"Four weeks and counting." Adam confirmed, with a slight shake of his head. 

"I knew it! I just knew it." 

There was a small bout of silence after that. The silences with Blue never seemed to stretch half the eternity they often stretched with Ronan. Adam was strangely glad for it, Blue was the kind of person who filled in all the blank spaces in a coloring book, even if the colors went out of line, while Ronan cherished his blank spaces, perhaps uninterested in the labor it would take to shade everything in.

Maybe some spaces were meant to be blank.

"Okay, so tell me. What's really going on? Is the vulture stirring up trouble again? Does he need me to rouse his senses with another motivational speech? Because I -" He drowned her out as she went on.

Adam sighed, closed his eyes and opened them again, he tapped the fingers of one hand on the palm of his other. "Ronan kissed me," the words out before he could even process them. "I also kissed him."

Both of Blue's eyebrows rode up far enough that they disappeared beneath her bangs. 

"You  _what?"_

"Yeah," his voice sounded small, unsure.

Beneath Blue's dark eyes and her scrutinizing gaze, he suddenly felt hyper-aware of what he was admitting to. His heart felt like it was in a chokehold, his stomach clenched warily. It seemed to grow colder, even though the temperature likely hadn't changed one bit. 

"Oh." She began. "I didn't know that - I thought that you... How did that even happen?" 

"I don't know. It just did."

Blue's expression softened, her surprise melting away as she nudged him with her knee so that he'd scoot a little to give her space to perch by his side. She then tugged at his hand from where it hung over his own knees and wrapped her fingers in his. Her hand was soft, warm. Just the way he remembered it. Which was consoling.

"Hey," she said. "Hey. It's okay. It's more than okay and... I'm really glad that you told me."

Adam stared down at their twined hands, the nostalgia a blur within him. He couldn't help but wonder, now that he'd admitted to kissing a boy, did she feel more comfortable touching him?

"It's not that. I'm not..." he struggled to put it into words. "I mean I guess I like guys in the same way that I like girls."

"That's really cool, Adam." She gave his hand a little squeeze. 

"It's not that, either. It's just... He's my client. I'm his freaking sober companion. There's a contract in between us. It's _weird_."

Blue was quiet a moment, her eyes scanning his as if the answers were painted across his face.

The street lamps made the plastic clips in her hair shine elusively. 

"How many times?" she quizzed. 

When he realized she was asking about how many times they'd kissed, Adam thought about it and his cheeks reddened. "Quite a few."

She pursed her lips. "Do you like him?"

"Yes. No. It's more complicated than that."

"Uncomplicate it for me."

"Blue," he said, with a pause. "At the risk of sounding like a complete idiot. What if I told you that he makes me _feel_. Feel things I can't even put into words?"

Blue broke into a small, ruminating smile. "I'd tell you I get the feeling."

"You do?" Adam blinked, then. "Wait. Is it... _America's Own Sweetheart Gansey?"_

Blue smirked before sighing and nodding softly. "I'm willing to admit I might've vigorously misunderstood him."

"Are you two together now?" Adam asked.

"I don't know what we are. Look, if you tell anyone, I'll literally have to get Calla to turn you into a ficus or something."

"I think I'd make a nice oak." When Blue just stared at him, he elbowed her lightly. "You know I won't."

Blue was quiet a moment, and when she spoke, her lips twisted in a dazed frown. Her gaze focused on some fixed point across the street.

"It's like... It's like... You know how I'm always amplifying everything with my mere presence because I'm like this sentient mega-powered battery? Well, I guess I've always felt queasy about having that kind of an effect on things. How I make everything so much louder.

My family tells me it's a rare gift, that it's my purpose or whatever, and they tell me, like, how they wouldn't know where they'd be without me and that's all great but... I don't know. I think I became afraid to touch things, to reach out to things because I thought I might accidentally make things too chaotic for everyone by merely being around them. You have no idea how many times I've been kicked out of a room because I've made it too unbearably loud."

She took a breath. "I guess what I'm trying to say is... He makes me quiet. And maybe I like that. I like the quiet. Sometimes."

"I don't think I would've understood what you mean if we'd had this talk five weeks ago, but I get that now." Adam admitted.

"Because of Ronan?" 

When Adam said nothing, Blue frowned, slightly. "He just seems so harsh. I can't even picture it. Not that I want to picture anything - ugh, you get what I mean. I'm just saying... Are you sure about him? I'm trying to be as unbiased as possible here, Adam, but I can't forget all the shit he's put you through and neither should you. I mean you literally couldn't quit complaining about him. Remember?"

Adam shrugged. "He's not as tough as he seems."

"Then why does he feel the need to pretend to be?" Blue asked, tilting her head to the side. 

"Don't we all feel that need from time to time?" he countered. 

"Point taken."

"Do you think he's worth it?" she asked, then.

"Worth what?"

"Spitting in the face of authority. You'd surely be a disgrace to sober companions everywhere. No offense. Honesty's just good medicine."

Adam didn't need to be reminded of the ignominy that he might face if anyone was to find out about what was going on.

The thing was, the actual chances were unlikely, since sober companions were self-employed in a sense and trusted to do their jobs, there were no superiors keeping a watch on you because you didn't really need a license to be a recovery coach, or even any concrete certification. Nor did you need personal experience, which was why it'd been so easy to land the job when he'd been tight on money. 

Despite himself, he said. "Ha. You should tell Ronan that. I think it might just make him like you."

"He can't _not_ like me just because I dropped a truth bomb on him."

"I'm totally gonna use that in an argument the next time he boasts about how truthful he is."

"You've gotten better at evading questions."

"Another thing I picked up from him I guess." 

"Adam,"

"Yes." He said. "I've been convinced he's worth something since I started the job. Despite appearances that suggested otherwise."

"That was not the question."

"Huh?"

"Is he worth it to _you?"_

Adam thought about it. But he didn't have to think, not really. Once again, the answer was immediately, truthfully and undoubtedly a yes. Ronan had woken something inside him that had been asleep for a long time and he was a good person. He was just a good person struggling very hard, which was something Adam himself could relate to.

"He is." Adam finally said, with a nod.

Blue disentangled their hands to run one gently through his hair. "Since Gansey has made me think twice before judging people, I'm going to take your word for it."

Adam nodded and sighed. The night air was beginning to thicken with misty bouts of fog, making the streetlights disappear within curls of wispy white.

"What do you think I should do?"

"Whatever you feel is right."

"I don't know what's right anymore."

Blue poked his cheek. "Oh, I think you do." 

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm Team Vulture if you are." 

Adam smiled. Blue smiled back. Despite the cool weather, something warm as a dream settled in his gut. 

"I mean... No harm no foul right?" Blue said.

"I was hoping you'd knock some sense into me." Adam confessed, quietly.

"Do you want me to?" Blue asked. 

"No just... Just tell me what you think."

"Honestly... I think that you've put too much into him to backtrack now. There's hardly any time left. See things through. Take things one step at a time and don't overthink anything for now. You'll be okay. I believe in you, and if you believe in him, I believe in him, too. As much as it hurts to say, American Sweetheart Gansey has taught me that people can always surprise you in positive ways. He used the word 'panglossian' and how it's important not to bend in the face of adversity. I'm not sure what all that really means, it might just be my inner idiot speaking, but I sort of resonated with it anyway." 

"Thanks, Blue." 

"So, who's the bestest best friend in the whole world?" 

"Your grammatically incorrect use of the word 'best' makes me uncomfortable, but yes, you are." Adam said. 

"Come on. Put it right here." But instead of offering her fist, she leaned her cheek towards him. He chuckled softly and placed a peck there. When he pulled away and met her gaze, she offered him another smile. "I can't believe you're into birds of prey. I know, love is love but your sexuality is just oh so controversial!" 

Adam rolled his eyes at her good natured teasing but he felt a thousand times lighter now he'd gotten it all off his chest, and after he'd waved goodbye to Blue and retreated back into the warmer, more pleasurable confines of the house, he decided he needed to find Ronan.

He needed to make sure the other boy was doing okay. Plus, there was something else he wanted to get off of his chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- please do not forget to leave me a comment, i adore reading your thoughts & y'all know i reply whenever i can!! :)  
> \- i can't quit adding in little references/quotes from the actual books in whenever i can. ack.  
> \- for those of you saying that ronan & adam's relationship hasn't seemed to shift much or enough, they're getting there, trust me. you've gotta understand how bad at feelings these boys are. like, even in the books, they're pretty much the same around each other even after they kissed. personally, i feel like the devil's in the details when it comes to pynch. they're a trainwreck, but they're a subtle trainwreck.  
> \- thank you so much for reading!! <33


	18. Flesh and Bone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I return with a really, specially long chapter. So maybe you should leave me a really, specially long comment as a prize! x)
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR: mentions of abuse, implied drug/alcohol use, homophobic slurs, graphic descriptions of violence, blood and harsh language.**
> 
> I'm totally giving away what could've been shocking for you guys, but trigger warnings are important and I'm not completely soulless. Anyway, expect some explicit content ahead. ;)

_"I keep waking up in someone else's bed: awake inside a wolf's panting throat is how I understand hunger." - Natalie Eilbert_

* * *

Ronan had returned to that damn couch he couldn’t seem to depart with. He didn’t even bother asking Adam where he’d been, just stared straight ahead at nothing.

So Adam ambled over to him and wrapped a firm hand around Ronan’s wrist. When he didn't hesitate or shirk out of his grasp, he lead him upstairs towards his bedroom.

Ronan was still shirtless, so Adam pulled his own t-shirt off too in one smooth motion. Ronan raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing. 

Ronan then dropped onto the bed on his stomach, propping his chin up underneath his crossed arms. Adam lay balanced on his elbow by his side.

He wanted to study Ronan’s ethereal tattoo, he wanted to run his hands over every breathtaking inch of it. The lights in the room were all off, but there was enough light dripping in through the windows for Adam to be able to scrutinize the design. He’d personally never been very fond of the idea of inking his body. It seemed like an unnecessary stain that he’d be stuck with forever, and he already had enough of those.

He found himself thinking otherwise when he realized how right and fitting it looked on Ronan, how every whorling line was deliberate and held a double-edged and heart-wrenching meaning.

In the dark lilting gleam of the night, the tattoo looked almost like a map to some other world, snaking over Ronan’s skin like a perfect constellation.

Black and limitless with a thousand souls burned into it.

“I kept seeing him,” Ronan drawled, as Adam traced the intricate seams of the tattoo curling over his back with leaf-brush touches.

“Lying there. Dead. Dead. Dead. And I knew no matter how many times I screamed or beat my fists against his lifeless body, he wouldn’t come back.”

Adam’s hands pressed a little deeper into his skin, as if he could feel imaginary fractures there.

Ronan let out a soft, struggling breath. “And that asshole didn’t even care. It didn’t even affect his life. He gets to live on and continue his wretched existence without a fucking scratch on him. How is that fair?”

Adam’s reply was heatless. “It’s not.”

“Death demands death. An eye for an eye. Why should I forgive that? Murder kills forgiveness.”

“You said it yourself. He isn’t the killer.”

“No, but he might as well have been. I…” a choked stutter. “I might as well have been.”

“We’re all killers in some way or the other.” Adam pointed out, softly. “But if you’re trying to say that this was in any way your fault then you’re stupid. Because you know better than that. I know better than that. It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.”

“How can you say that for certain?” Ronan asked.

“Tragedy doesn’t pick a body to posses or a person to wield it as a weapon. It just strikes.”

“Yeah, you’re the poster child for tragedy,” Ronan mumbled. When Adam didn’t react, Ronan pushed on. “I remember. That night you thought I was too knackered to notice. I _remember_. When you woke up thinking your dad was here.”

He sighed and let his fingers slip between Ronan’s shoulder blades, the length of them fairly ghostly and pale against the dark margins of the design.

Adam felt an amused sort of thrill grip him when he noticed the prickles on Ronan’s skin that he’d managed to elicit with his touch.

When Adam broke the quiet, his words felt like they’d left a tear in the air. “I always wake up thinking he’s here.”

“And you don’t feel it?”

Adam frowned. “I don’t follow.”

“That need for vengeance for what he did to you.”

Adam shrugged. His mere existence was a quiet rebellion. Every step he’d made that had led him further out of his father’s ugly kingdom of hatred and squalor was starting an uprising in his name. He was not Adam Parrish, the prince, he was Adam Parrish, the renegade. Robert Parrish wanted Adam compliant and pliable as clay, so he’d made his skin into steel.

“Getting out was vengeance enough. He can’t control me anymore. He can’t beat me anymore. He can’t even see me anymore. That is a win in my book.”

“Enough is never enough,” Ronan sighed, and Adam could understand. Ronan demanded more of the world because he’d _seen_ more of the world. Who knew if there were even any limits to what he could create with just a brush of his dream-drenched fingertips, and yet here he was, a slave to something as mortal and human as grief.

Adam figured everyone was a slave to something, though. His father had been a slave to alcohol, Adam was a slave to his overwrought ambition.

“You reeked of alcohol. That night,” Adam admitted quietly, without an elaboration.

Ronan was quiet a moment, and then the smile that creeped across his face was cold as an open gash. “I hope your dad chokes on his favorite poison.”

“Yeah,” Adam agreed, thoughtfully. “Me too.”

They were quiet again. The quiet in between them seemed to grow and shift and stretch like the night sky outside their window. Ronan’s skin was warm as life under his touch. Something blazed in his gut, something he would not dare name. Ronan was a miracle of razor blades and taut, simmering synapses, and he was letting Adam map the whole fragile way.

It felt like a gift, and wasn’t that what bodies were meant to feel like? Gifts of cells and bones instead of shattering things that detonated without notice. Maybe if he hadn’t been dismantled so many times, he would have known what it was like to put himself back together and allow himself to imagine someone touching him in a way that didn’t feel like a call to arms. Adam ran his hands down towards Ronan’s lower back and retraced the path back up from there.

“Damn, Parrish. What did you cut your hands on. Coral?” Ronan joked.

“You,” Adam replied.

Ronan let out a wicked noise of delight as Adam leaned slightly, experimentally, towards Ronan’s spine and gently pressed a kiss to the shifting pattern, his lips grazing something like knives or branches. Ronan went still as bone beneath his lips.

“Do you ever dream of going back to that hell house?” he asked softly.

“No,” Adam’s tone fell away like a dead petal. “But I still go there sometimes. Unwillingly. In my head.”

"I'm sorry." Ronan said, the words sounded like they were spread thin.

"I'm not." Adam admitted, honestly.

Ronan looked at him like he was a math equation, which made Adam smile. 

With Ronan’s skin warm under his touch and the deluding mutiny of the midnight hour, he could almost pretend that things were far easier than in actuality, that no contract held them at gunpoint, that they were just two regular people, begging to be healed.

“What are your dreams like when they’re not out of your head?” Adam asked.

“Busy trying to kill me,” Ronan scoffed, voice humorless.

“Maybe because you’re busy trying to kill yourself.”

“I don’t want to die.”

Adam’s heart flamed in his chest. It felt like an admission, it felt like the words he’d been wanting to hear ever since he’d met Ronan, and yet there was something deadened and decaying in his voice, like he didn’t want to die, but that he thought he was dying regardless.

“Then don’t.” Adam pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck. Ronan pretended not to shiver.  
  
“You know,” Ronan’s throat sounded hoarse. “You’re the worst thing that’s ever fucking happened to me.”

“Yeah? Well, the feeling’s mutual.”

Sometimes, looking at Ronan was like looking at two people. The phantom he wore and the truth that he was. He could pretend all he wanted to be brutal, to make people want to cross the street when they saw him coming, to fit into a certain societal archetype. But that didn't make him who he was. Dreams and fist bumps with his little brother and the regard he held inside him was who he truly was.

There was an acute pleasure in weakening Ronan’s seemingly impenetrable resolve that sent a bolt of adrenaline sweeping through him. Suddenly, he felt his brows crease, his eyes laser-focusing on the mystery, the mirror, the magnet before him.

He felt Ronan’s body tense ever-so-slightly beneath the weight of his hands.

“Unguibus et rostro,” Adam said.

Ronan let out a muttered profanity under his breath that sounded to Adam like the beginning of a poem.Before Adam could think up a response, he suddenly turned, pushed a little off the bed and leaned in to swallow him into a kiss that made Adam want to dissolve like sand or starlight under the heat of it. Adam managed the quietest noise of surprise as one of Ronan’s hands dipped diligently into his hair and the kiss escalated.

It was a passionate tangle of lips and then it was an urgent battle of tongues before Ronan let his other hand trickle slowly down Adam’s ribs like warm water.

As Ronan continued to draw himself over him, Adam was propelled backwards, his spine colliding with the ridge of the bed, making it creak beneath his weight. Ronan let himself rest lightly against Adam’s side as his hands wandered gently over the sparse trail of blond hair that led towards the waistband of his trousers.

Adam sucked in a startled breath as Ronan hooked a leg over both of Adam’s and his hand slipped beneath his boxers, lightly gripping the length of his cock. His whole world seemed to shrink down to the soft calamity of brushing lips, the wet slide of tongues, that fervent, growing hunger brimming inside of him.  
  
Ronan’s hand began to pump his length, his fingers applying just the right amount of pressure to make him lose all semblance of mind, his torso propped half-against Adam’s and half-away.

Their bodies were entwined orbits in the dark.

Adam had to bite harshly down on his lower lip and breathe out his nose to keep from letting out a loud, whimpering breath when Ronan momentarily pulled his hand away, leaving Adam estranged and aching, before he slapped a hand flat against Adam’s stomach and rolled his hips down hard, grinding the bulge in his pants against Adam’s cock. Adam’s chest heaved, his body shuddered. He didn’t even have the sense left to be embarrassed at the animalistic sounds Ronan was managing to pull out of him.

“Ronan,” the name came out as a guttural grimace, reverent and frenzied.

Ronan said nothing as Adam tilted his chin up to get a better look at him. Ronan’s eyes were glazed wide as mirror balls and laser-rapt on his own gaze. The moonlight through the blinds crossing over into the room left luminescent stripes of curving light reflecting over Ronan’s face and down his shoulders, and when his eyelashes dipped, they seemed to glitter elusively.

His mouth was a tight line as he skimmed his hand back up to grip Adam’s face and card roughly through his hair. Adam knew he should probably be upset at the harsh treatment, at how Ronan could go from soft and gentle to relentless and demanding in a matter of seconds, but all it did was make his gut clench and his chest flutter.

“Don’t say my name like that,” Ronan whispered, against his neck, before his hand found Adam’s cock again and he began to get him off once more, harsher and faster this time. Adam’s head lolled as the friction grew along with that burning desire in his belly and the chaotic rush swarming his veins.

“You like it,” he mustered, the words coming out more as heavy sighs.

Ronan seemed to grunt in denial just as Adam let out the smallest moan, his need intensifying at the ecstatic waves of an oncoming orgasm. Pleasure rippled through his body and he had to wrap his arms around Ronan’s waist to stay relatively steady, his knuckles digging into Ronan’s spine, his breaths catching cataclysmically.

He pressed grateful kisses into Ronan’s damp neck as the final shudders barrelled through him like hot, dancing thunderbolts. He came warmly into the palm of Ronan’s hand, his heart a rapid fire in his chest, his stomach rising and falling like a cascade. He let out a final, choked grunt against Ronan’s collarbone.  
  
Then his head dropped onto Ronan’s shoulder, his eyelids burned shut, he panted hard against him as the jaded euphoria finally began to dissipate a little. His legs felt even weaker than the last time as Ronan released his drained length and bit down on his shoulder.

He then tipped Adam’s chin up with his good hand and carefully pried Adam’s jaw open with his fingers before pressing every wet inch of them into Adam’s tongue. Adam let out a surprised gasp before obediently wrapping his mouth around them and sucking his own taste out of them, into his mouth. Ronan kept a cool, rather disillusioned look on him the whole time and when he took his hand away, he wiped it over Adam’s bare chest.

Adam’s mouth tasted weird, and he suddenly felt ridiculously parched, but didn’t deny Ronan access when he wrapped his arms around his neck in a strangling hold, drawing his mouth over his as he kissed him senseless.

They made out for another fifteen minutes until Ronan noticed how absolutely wrecked and exhausted Adam had become, his body becoming loose as if he’d been drained of blood.

So Ronan neatly maneuvered himself off the bed and turned, presumably to acquire a shirt and wash his hands.

He wandered out into the hallway, leaving Adam lost and enchanted as all he could do was drop right back onto the bed, which’s sheets they’d made a tangled mess out of.

When Ronan returned, he was dressed and showed no telltale signs of the events that had just transpired except for the way his eyes still skirted Adam’s partially naked body as he threw his t-shirt at him. Adam couldn’t be bothered to catch it, his hands limp against his sides as the material of clothing draped his face with an inaudible smack. Adam groaned lightly and clawed the shirt off, letting it drop to his side.

Ronan had also brought with him a tall glass of water. He ambled over and pressed the rim against Adam’s mouth and Adam drank compliantly, almost desperately; gulping the whole thing down in four languid sips.

“Go take a fucking shower, Dirty,” Ronan snapped, as he withdrew the glass and turned on his heel to leave. “You smell like jizz.”

“Yeah,” Adam managed. “Thanks to you.”

Ronan regaled him with a bored, almost aimless string of well structured curses before throwing a pillow at him and padding back out into the hall. Adam’s cheeks burned. He strained to make his uselessly starstruck body work again before he grabbed his shirt and slithered off the bed to go wash up.

* * *

The minute Joseph Kavinsky’s fist met Adam Parrish’s jaw, he realized he might’ve just made the worst mistake of his life.

He also realized that he’d maneuvered himself recklessly into someone else’s fight and that there was no turning back now.

It was either fight or succumb, beat someone senseless or get beaten senseless, which wasn’t much of an option at all.

Adam’s brain was instantly filled with old, bloodstained memories with violent hands that tugged and tugged at his weary bones. Everything dipping to black, his breath vanquished in his chest, his mother’s shattered scream, a pair of dark, soupy, vodka-rattled eyes, the sudden heat and the nothingness that followed as his ear bled and police sirens wailed somewhere in the distance, a fist shaped like a gun, words that bit wounds into him, the taste of dirt, gritty and familiar, in his mouth, and the hem of his shirt soaked with his own tears.

Now, he saw Joseph Kavinsky’s face age and morph and become Robert Parrish’s face. The same deadened eyes, the same remorseless laugh, the same, the same, the same.

Adam wasn’t a fighter. He didn’t want to fight. The idea of fights breaking out usually turned his stomach and made him want to gag. But did he have a choice now? As much as he couldn’t stand confrontations of pummels and knuckles, he didn’t want to lose. It was the one thing he truly couldn’t afford. It would be a blow to his pride, his mind, his being.

At first he just stood there in complete and utter denial, almost as if he was having an out-of-body-experience and watching himself from somewhere far away, unable to call the shots on his own body, only watch as a distant, helpless observer. A ghost in his own bones. Time seemed to slow down all around them. Everything reduced to the breath before the next as the tremors in Kavinsky’s eyes and the quiver of his hungry fists seemed to reverberate through Adam’s skin.

He ducked and blocked a blow to the cheekbone, but only barely.

He’d never learnt to fight.

He’d refused Calla when she’d offered and explained how it was the idea of violence in itself that’d made him sick to his stomach. “It ain’t all bad, kid,” Calla had muttered. “It’s important to know how to defend yourself.”

“Maybe,” he’d replied. “I still don’t want it.”

“It’s your funeral.” She’d shrugged.

Now he could hear the funeral bells ringing in his ears already, taste the blood hot as death in his mouth.

Everything was spinning. The night felt prickly and delicate, as if the air itself was breakable. Traffic howled in the distance.

He was blinking back sharp glinting ice shards of neon, headlights flickering apocalyptically, Kavinsky’s jaw upturned in a bloodthirsty snarl.

* * *

**6 HOURS AGO  
**

* * *

“It’s so quiet.” Adam said, staring wildly into Ronan’s eyes. Bitten azure and crucifying.

It was around six in the evening, the translucent curtains pooled little bars of gold onto the carpet and Chainsaw fluttered around the room.

Ronan didn’t like to keep her caged for longer than was necessary. She wasn’t making any sounds though, for once, more engrossed in collecting a colorful array of dream rocks and stacking them together to build a leaning tower of some sort.

Adam and Ronan were lying fully clothed and facing each other, with Ronan’s arm wrapped loosely over Adam’s neck. He kept tousling his hair with his fingers or gently running them over his cheekbone, behind his ear, down his jaw.

Their faces were merely inches away, their noses almost touching, Ronan’s breath was warm and minty against his mouth. Adam closed his eyes as Ronan ran slippery butter-fingers down his temple towards his eyelids and leaned in to press the softest kiss beneath his eye.

“I thought you hate the quiet,” Ronan replied, pulling back.

“Not this kind of quiet. This is the good kind of quiet.” Adam explained, opening his eyes with a small sigh.

“Okay weirdo.”

He couldn’t put the feeling to words. How timeless this quiet felt. How a part of him just wanted to stay here forever, wrapped up with this dreamer as the real world trickled aimlessly by. It would be so much easier than getting out of bed and throwing himself back into the dull matrix of a blurry routine. Easier than attending uni and filling notebooks and sweating through his shirt. There was a part of Adam that had begun to ache for the mystical, a part of Adam that was envious of Gansey, how he went around chasing the tails of dragons.

If only he were someone else in some other life where he could give everything up to go exploring instead of spending day after day working tirelessly for recognition, for status, just to prove something to a bunch of people who didn’t matter and likely didn’t care, just to prove something to a part of himself that should have died the day he left Henrietta.

“What are you going to do?” Adam asked, tilting his chin up slightly to meet Ronan’s eyes again. “I mean, if school isn't your thing and college is not your thing either. What’s your thing?”

Ronan pressed down on his neck and leaned in to brush his lips over Adam’s nose. His lips warmed Adam’s skin as he replied. “Does everyone have to have a thing?”

Adam bit his lip. “Ideally, yes.”

“Ideals are for idiotic people.” Ronan mumbled, his fingers raking Adam’s already bedraggled hair.

Adam frowned. “I have ideals.”

“Exhibit A.”

“Asshole,” Adam said, and Ronan laughed lightly, before pulling him in for a slow, sleepy kiss that was all tugging lips and tongues rolling over teeth.

“What if,” Ronan drawled, his forehead pressing against Adam’s. “I told you. Would you laugh at me?” Adam shook his head. “Tell me.”

“If you laugh at me, I’ll rip your larynx out.”

“Jeez, okay. Enough with your empty threats.”

Ronan’s smile was crooked and jarring. “Who said they’re empty?”

“Alright. You’re Jack the fucking Ripper.”

“I wanna be a farmer.”

Adam stared. “I take that back. You’re Old McDonald.”

Ronan rolled his eyes but Adam pressed a hand to his cheek. “You’re serious?”

“I dunno. I just don’t wanna be choked by a tie like my brother or mad obsessed with a dead-end like Gansey. I just wanna be… like, free. Imagine all those acres of space. I could build a ramp to the fucking moon.”

Sometimes, Adam thought, that it was all too easy to forget that Ronan Lynch had grown up on a farm, but now he vowed he would never forget. A slow smile crept up his face and he leaned in, allowing their noses to brush again before whispering against his lips, “I told you,” he said. “You’re a good person.”

“Oh farmers make great serial killers. We can wield heavy machinery without breaking much of a sweat. Tractors, rakes, cleavers.” Ronan supplied.

“Mmhm?” Adam hummed, giving him a quick, loving peck on the lips. “But tell me,” he said, letting his fingers fidget with the strings on Ronan’s black hoodie at the baseline of his throat. “Don’t you ever find yourself wanting more? I mean… I couldn’t imagine a life without… without purpose and aim. Wouldn’t it get boring? Wouldn’t it all feel pointless?”

“Life isn’t a series of missions to accomplish, Parrish.”

“But that’s exactly my life.” Adam muttered lowly.

“It could be adventurous,” Ronan suggested. “All that time on our hands. To wake up every morning and do whatever the fuck we wanted without worrying about salaries and mortgages and bullshit and bullshit. Sounds brilliant.”

“Sounds like an impossible dream,” Adam corrected, with a sigh, tucking his head under Ronan’s chin, his good ear pressed into Ronan’s shoulder over the material of his sweater.

“You still believe in impossible dreams?” Ronan smirked.

“You know what I mean.”

Ronan’s fingers lightly roamed over the nape of his neck and the length of his back. Adam barely felt it through the thick layer of his shirt, and still all the hair on his arms seemed to stand on end.

Of course it was easy for somebody like Ronan to think that way, he had his entire life sketched out for him on a silver platter, with enough money in the bank to manage his finances without ever having to work a day in his life.

“Oh right, because our lives come with guidelines.” Ronan said.

“Kind of,” Adam argued. “There’s an order to things. A codec to the way the world works.”

“It’s societal pressure and it’s fucking stupid.”

“I am the wheel that turns to the whims of societal pressure.” Adam replied.

“Wheels can be broken,” Ronan said.

“But I’ll keep turning.” Adam said, with a lazy smirk. Ronan rolled his eyes at him as he brought his hand back up to brush the side of his face with his knuckles.

“Societal pressure can be important, you know. It maintains balances.” He added.

“Yeah, and executes tons of shitty restrictions.”

“Restrictions are often implemented for a reason…” Adam said, his voice trailing off as their gazes locked and Ronan’s lower lip quivered. Adam leaned in to still it with his own lips as Ronan let out a quiet breath, his lashes dipping slightly.

“This feels wrong.” He admitted, sadly. “Accepting money from your brother and… _This_ , with you.”

“This,” Ronan scowled, a muscle in his jaw clenching. “It doesn’t have to be anything.”

“You don’t want it to be?” Adam asked, tilting his head, and Ronan’s brows seemed to furrow in addled thought.

He then just pressed his lips in between Adam’s nose and upper lip, before sliding his mouth invitingly down towards Adam’s in a warm drawl of a kiss, his fingers brushing Adam’s chin and cheek in slow circles.

When he pulled away, Adam was still staring at him, something heavy and reverent and aching drumming in between his ribs; a chaotic, pleasurable rhythm.

“Where are you going?” he asked, then.

“Be right back.” Ronan said, pulling away and slipping out of bed to make his way out the room. Adam sighed and turned so that he could stare up at the ceiling as he tapped his fingers over his stomach in idle thought.

Perhaps after this Greenmantle thing was over and so was the term, he could still find a way to stay in Ronan’s orbit.

They could still be friends. Maybe even more.  
  
He’d given this job his all and gotten more than he’d bargained for in the process, but did he still deserve the money when he’d been… hooking up with Ronan Lynch?

It felt gross and disreputable and scandalous. It made him feel ill because what if Ronan thought…

If anyone were to find out, would they think Adam was doing this on purpose? The idea didn’t sit well with him.

He wasn’t taking advantage, but Ronan’s enigma felt like a gravitational pull that was keeping him grounded. It felt just as good as it felt wrong. Was wanting to be there for him in more ways than one truly that bad a thing, if nobody had to know, if he’d managed to make a difference… In the long run, was it truly that big of a deal?

He was making excuses for himself and he knew it. But he also knew that his mouth still tasted like Ronan’s mouth, and their breaths mingling made his heart erupt in his chest, and his jacket smelt like woodsmoke and leather and cologne and _boy_.

Just as his eyelids were beginning to grow heavy with sleep and he was about to drift off, Ronan’s phone buzzed with an incoming text message, again and then again and again.

Adam wasn’t much of a snooper, and he liked to stay out of things that weren’t his business, but his gaze seemed to wander towards the lit-up screen without his permission. It sat merely inches away from him after all. Adam’s gut turned cold as he read the messages.  
  
K: hey princess  
K: we’ve got a score to settle  
K: don’t think i forgot ;)

He picked up the phone when he was sure he couldn’t hear footsteps coming up the hallway and the silence sent a rebellious pang through him. Adam stared at the screen with calculating eyes before cautiously typing in a response.

Ronan Lynch: What do you want?

K: aw  
K: that’s cute  
K: i know what you want ;)  
K: stop kidding yourself  
K: this’ll be your last chance.

Ronan Lynch: ???  
  
K: *Shared A Location With You*

K: meet me here @ 12 AM. don’t be late, okay?

Suddenly, an idea popped into his head. A volatile, awful, reckless idea, but one that might exterminate the Kavinsky problem once and for all. Ronan was healing, and there wasn’t a chance in hell Adam was going to let a shithead like Kavinsky hinder his progress, not if he could help it.  
  
Ronan Lynch: I’ll be there.  
  
K: ALONE.  
  
Ronan Lynch: Okay.  
  
K: you’re uncharacteristically cooperative today, lynch

Ronan Lynch: I want to get this over with.  
  
K: fair enough  
K: see you on the streets man

Adam wiped the conversation with quivering fingers before Ronan returned. He strolled back in with a couple cokes, a brown paper bag and two packets of chips.

He threw one of the packets at Adam’s chest as he paused in the doorway.

Adam stared down at the snack. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“Are you in the mood to cook?” he quizzed.

“No,”

“So I ordered dinner.”

Adam sighed. “Thanks,” he said. Ronan merely shrugged as he kicked his boots back off and ambled over towards the bed.

“You want to eat in bed?” Adam asked, incredulously.

“Don’t leave any crumbs or I’ll make you clean it up with your tongue.”

Adam still stared at the packet of chips suspiciously. “How much?”

“Shut up.”

“You have to stop paying for my meals.”

“My brother’s paying you for your time, isn’t he?” Ronan retaliated.

Once again, the thought made him ill. He didn’t like to be reminded of the job when he was curled up in Ronan’s bed. He tried to discern the exact moment in time when Ronan had stopped _feeling_ like a client and came up blank.

Maybe it was when he’d kissed him. Maybe it was when he’d watched a live dream flitter up into the sky like a UFO. Maybe Ronan had never truly felt like the average client because he wasn’t your average person.

Did it make things different or was he just alluding to Ronan’s anomalous nature to make himself feel less deplorable?

“Ronan,” he said, seriously. “I already feel shit enough about it, okay? So fucking stop.”

“Okay, okay. Goddamn you can be demanding.”

“Look who’s talking.”

Ronan smiled. “You know, maybe you can pay me back in kind…” he began, before breaking into a slight frown all of a sudden, his eyebrows narrowing as he glanced at the mobile phone lying by Adam’s side. “Hey, I thought I heard my phone buzz earlier,” he muttered.

Adam stiffened. “Uh, I don’t think so? It was probably mine.”

He then shrugged. “Who cares. I hate that hunk of fucking metal anyway.” He mumbled, before climbing back into bed. “Gansey makes me carry it. Says my caveman penchants have no place in the modern world. Prick.” Adam laughed quietly and slid his mouth open to meet Ronan’s halfway before they dug into their food.

Two hours later, Adam stared at the time as the dread built inside him, rolling his decision over and over in his head. Every pragmatic sense inside him was warring with his inherent distaste and adrenaline fuelled need to end this business with Kavinsky once and for all.

He sighed and stared down at Ronan, who’d fallen asleep by his side. It was shocking that he’d let his guard down enough to get some shut-eye in Adam’s presence, it was a strangely warming thought, one which solidified his decision. Ronan may not be showing it in so many words, but he was finally beginning to let Adam in and now, at the cusp of their term, Adam was determined to keep things that way.

He shot Ronan one final, lingering glance. Once again, a little enraptured by how peaceful and soft he managed to look in his sleep, like a storm on the horizon.

He slept on his back with his elbow tucked up behind his head and his lashes fluttered slightly as he blinked in his sleep. His breaths came steady and silent, one arm hung loose at his side, his wrist turned upwards at an angle that couldn’t be comfortable.

Part of Adam just wanted to lay there, face to face, watching the other boy until sleep overcame him, too.

The lights from the night outside had spilled over him in cascades of silver, limning his features in starry and magnificent ways. He felt as bright and dreamy and imaginary as the luminosity of the windows. _He’s worth it,_ a voice in his head noted. _Let’s pray I don’t fuck up._

He slid out of bed, sluggish and quiet so as not to wake Ronan up.

Once Adam had gathered his coat and gotten behind the wheel, silently wondering if Ronan would mind him borrowing his vehicle without permission, he realized he had no idea what he was going to do, no concrete plan.

This was all a gamble. He just knew he had to show up. He just knew he had to kindly ask Kavinsky to back off.

Adam wasn’t usually this rash or impulsive, but the grim, metallic spite that he’d been harboring in his heart for Kavinsky and his ilk seemed to be fuelling him. So he pulled a map out on his phone and followed the impassive instructions of the robot that lived in it.

The night was muggy and suffocating, the moon veiled behind spirals of chubby grey clouds.

It felt rebellious and incredibly stupid driving deep into the dark to some place that would no doubt be incredibly shady. Somewhere nobody would find his body if he were to die tonight. Yet there was gasoline in his chest, stirring a brilliant fire; steering him.

Calling the bluff of somebody as repulsive as Kavinsky didn’t feel dangerous, instead it felt like retribution for all the times he’d been looked down on by people just like him.

Joseph Kavinsky enjoyed punishing the world for his plight, and that was a notion Adam simply couldn’t forgive.

He knew what it felt like to be wronged, but he also knew that he had no tolerance for cowards. He was a fighter despite the fact that he was no good in one. He was a fighter because he’d climbed out of every pit he’d ever fallen into with bare tooth and nail and the knowledge of that was what kept him going.

As he pulled onto another dirt road by an old abandoned church, he wondered what was waiting for him on the other side.

Maybe Ronan would never forgive him. Maybe at this point, he didn’t care.

This felt _right_. It made him feel free. Adam had been so rigid all his life he’d never gotten to just… be a teenager, a reckless kid doing something unadvisable behind his parents’ backs.

Not that his parents would’ve cared.  
  
Adolescence had only ever meant more things to fear. Fear of his own body, his hormones. Fear of entanglements, fear of his father’s strikes getting harsher, faster, more frequent. Fear of his chances of survival declining by the day.

Kavinsky was expecting Ronan Lynch but boy was he in for a surprise.

“Lynch!” Kavinsky called, and then his entire face fell as he caught a glance at Adam. He attempted to cover it up, gathering himself quickly and launching a snarl in his direction. “Well, this is _interesting_. I don’t remember ordering a side dish with my meal tonight.”

“I’m here to talk.” Adam announced, sliding out of the car and shutting the door behind him.

“Please.” He gestured around theatrically. “The stage is all yours!”

“You’re going to leave Ronan alone.” Adam said.

Kavinsky looked amused at the notion, but his voice was low, a thinly veiled threat. “Am I now?”

“Yes, yes. You are.”

“I wonder,” Kavinsky started. “Does he send all his little bitches to do his dirty work? Why isn’t he here in the flesh? Too afraid to face me after the little stunt he pulled? And after all the generosities I extended his way, too. What a shame. Really.”

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

As understanding flashed in the other boy’s eyes, his smile twinkled and turned impossibly crooked. “Naughty,” he mocked, tsking. “He might kill you for that, you know. I heard he hospitalised a man once. Predictable, really. All that pent up rage inside him. Might make the big bad wolf huff and puff and blow your house down.”

Before Adam could open his mouth, Kavinsky continued. “Who do you even think you are? You think he cares about you? You have no idea what you’re up against. That princess you’ve got locked up in your tower? He’s a master manipulator. If he’s giving you what you want, he’s fucking using you. It’s only a matter of time before he dumps you out on your ass.

So it’s cute and all that you’re out here trying to defend him or whatever but I think you’re just deluding yourself. See, Lynch couldn’t care less about you or me. All he cares about is his fucking revenge.” He then took a step forward, eyes glinting malignantly. “Except I know how to make him dance to my tune. Do you?”

Adam’s mouth twitched. “You don’t stand a chance. Let it go, man. Seriously.”

“What did you say to me, faggot?” Kavinsky barked.

“Don’t test me.” Adam muttered, between gritted teeth.

Kavinsky looked unruffled, and rather delighted. “Or what?” When Adam didn’t immediately reply, his expression turned cold. “This is my turf, asshole! What’re you gonna’ do? Bring it. I motherfucking dare you.”

“Hey,” Adam called. “Stay the fuck away from him. You hear me? I don’t want you texting him again. I don’t want you bothering him again. I don’t want you anywhere in his general radius again. So take your boy band and _go_.”

Kavinsky stared and stared at him, his eyebrows raised so far up into his head that they’d disappeared beneath the bangs of his hair. He then broke into the sleaziest smile Adam had ever seen, tilting his head back and chortling loudly, terribly.

Then he was closing the distance between them in quick, soundless and feline strides. His lankies stood a few paces away from him, watching with dazed interest to see if the tsunami devoured.

It felt strangely appropriate to be getting into a scuffle with scum like Joseph Kavinsky in the holy and patronizing sightline of a deserted church.

Adam knew he couldn’t fight back even as Kavinsky tore into him with animalistic ferocity. Up close, he smelled just like his father, and as Adam closed his eyes, the rancid smell of alcohol was overpowering, as if he were drowning in an invisible pool of it. His gut lurched. Then there was pain.

Pain erupting like a heated fountain, spreading everywhere like a cancer. Adam sucked in a breath as a dynamite shot up his arm, let out a shuddered grunt as his cheek throbbed with the force of the blow.

The pain had never felt more cleansing, more like returning home. It was sickening and yet, it felt like he was watching his old life flash before his eyes just at the very death of it. For the first time in his life, the image of his father distorted like rippled water in a lake before vanishing completely, to be replaced by the juxtaposition of a numb wholeness he couldn’t quite explain.

Suddenly, he was hyper-aware that this was Joseph Kavinsky’s fists pummeling him, and he was berserk with the weirdly relieving knowledge of it.

He was free. His father couldn’t touch him. He was free. His father couldn’t touch him. And this? This was a reminder of everything that he’d endured. Everything he’d overcome.  
  
Everything he could overcome and endure.

He couldn’t fight back, it wasn’t in his nature. It wasn’t something that would work. He knew life wasn’t like the movies.

He wouldn’t magically gain superpowers or be able to lift a car by sheer force of will. If he attempted to fight back, it was likely to be even more painful, even more futile, and he would come off looking like an idiot.

No, he wouldn’t fight back, but he would stand there and take every blow. He was competent at taking blows.

It was a shin to the stomach and a fist against his jaw and multiple jolts to the ribs.  
  
He remained steadfast until he tasted blood and every organ inside him felt like it was liquefying, collapsing to and melting with the stinging, ever-present pain.

His knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground, his heart hammering a dull, repetitive notion in his chest, his legs feeling like arctic ice drifting away from the shores of his body. He was at least seventy-five percent sure he’d bruised more than a couple ribs. Badly.

Kavinsky then crouched down and cupped his chin in his filthy hands before staring down and meeting his eyes, his gaze ominous and piercing. “I admire your dedication, I really do. Getting your ass kicked over your time-bomb boyfriend. He must give it to you _real_ good.”

Adam mustered a choked breath, managing to inhale more of his own blood, and then spat at him.

Kavinsky smiled again, ugly and menacing, before wiping his face and standing back up. “Let’s go, boys,” he drawled. “If he ever wants to embarrass himself again, I’m sure he knows where to find me.” His crew snickered like the hyenas they were, and Adam managed a faint but audible retort that made Kavinsky halt dead in his tracks.

“You’re the pathetic one,” he said, before breaking into a hysterical laugh.

“What did you say?”

“I said,” he repeated, in between laughs like short sobs that made his entire chest flame like poison ivy. “ _You’re_ the pathetic one.”

He continued. “I mean, look at you. So incredibly alone and so desperate not to be that you’re making up things in your head that aren’t even there. Not to mention how greedy you are for just a little bit of attention.”

Kavinsky turned on his heel. “You gotta be very careful of whatever words you choose next, fuckweasel. Or I might just kill you.”

“He loathes you, you know. And I think you know it. Somewhere deep in that dirty, delusional brain of yours. So maybe _you_ should stop embarrassing _yourself_ and give it up. Take a walk. Plant a tree. Get a fucking hobby.” He continued.

“You know there’s a word for sad people like you. People who keep beating at dead horses, blinded by their own misery and stupidity. _Sociopaths_.”

Kavinsky lunged at him again but this time, his groupies hauled him back. Adam was still laughing, choking on his own blood, but laughing. Every muscle in his body felt loose and unwrung despite the pain that throbbed through him like a fatal pulse.

He was alive. He was going to die. He felt homesick for the dirt he’d grown to like the taste of. He felt sick. He felt elated. Everything was bloodied hell and everything was goddamn beautiful.  
  
_I was here. I exist. I’m alive because I bleed._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- A QUIZ FOR YA, after reading this chapter do you:  
> a) love me and want to have my children.  
> b) want to set me on fire, toss me in a dumpster & then send that dumpster hurtling off the edge of a volcano.  
> c) both.
> 
> \- i'm sorry?? there was only one way this thing with Kavinsky was going to end tbh  
> \- hE'LL BE OKAY I PROMISE?  
> \- i was initially gonna make a huge cliffhanger so at least i didn't go down that slippery route, right?  
> \- at least there was a lot of good stuff before the bad??  
> \- please do leave me a comment if this chapter put you through the wringer! i'll really appreciate hearing how i destroyed your emotions from my evil altar where i conspire against y'all & all that.  
> \- thank you sm for reading!! <3 <3 <3


	19. A Warring Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this chapter's soft & sweet for the most part, my christmas gift to you. i really hope y'all like it. maybe leave me a little present in the comment section? ;)

_"What scares you now? How do you dream through all the howling?" - Marty McConnell_

* * *

If rage could decapitate, Adam’s head would be lolling somewhere by his feet, and Ronan would be about two seconds away from playing kickball with it.

Ronan paced and paced the length of the room, before pushing a hand into his chest and shoving him backwards through the open bathroom door.

Adam’s lower back collided with the edge of the sink and he winced. Ronan looked unsympathetic, but there was something that had frozen over in the amorphous blue of his eyes.

 _“What the fuck were you thinking?”_ he asked, but even as he cursed reverently beneath his breath in a myriad of creative and colorful admonitions and his words grinded through his teeth, he gently took Adam’s face in his hands, warm palms sliding over cold tarnished skin like tethers that held him there. Eyes searching and calculating, following the bloody trail of every new forming scar, studying each patch of bruised skin, as if attempting to digest it.

“I wasn’t.” Adam admitted.

After lying there in the dirt long after Kavinsky and his pack of wild coyotes had left him, he’d finally managed to drag his massacred body up and haul himself into the car.

His hands felt bitten numb, but he’d somehow managed to drive back home before he slid open the car door and practically crumbled to a fumbling heap onto the open driveway, leaving a smear of red on the window and staining the door handle, too.

“Sorry about getting blood all over your car. I’ll get it cleaned, I promise.” He’d said, and Ronan had just stood there, quiet and furious and seething, before he forcibly maneuvered Adam into the house, jaw tight and eyes flaming.

Adam had been a little awestruck at first, noticing how bleary-eyed Ronan had been, still in his sweatpants, like he’d only just woken up, and yet he somehow still managed to look like he was about to implode and take the whole world with him.

“Do you hear yourself when you talk?” he’d then said, with a gaze snapped awake and murderous. “Fuck the damn car!”

“He was a threat and a problem.” Adam explained, weakly.

“Not yours!” Ronan growled. “Jesus Christ, _Jesus Christ!_ I could have fucking handled him.”

“Probably,” Adam admitted, as Ronan’s palms tensed beneath his clenched jaw.

_“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?”_

Ronan’s infliction rose and Adam had to conceal a flinch.

“A lot of things,” he said, after giving it a quick thought. “Do you want me to make you an alphabetized list?”

Ronan gaped at him. “If I could kill you myself, I swear -”  
  
“It’s okay.” Adam reassured, cutting him off. He felt bolder than he had in weeks. Now their time was almost running up and this was what he’d chosen to do. And it had worked, for the most part.

Kavinsky had retreated, in his own passive aggressive manner. Adam was almost positive that his ego would keep him from ever bothering Ronan again. It was too late to waste energy on regrets.

Ronan looked like he wanted to scream, his eyes wide with horror. “And you say _I_ have a death wish,” he snapped, scathingly. “There’s absolutely a screw loose in your head or something,” he continued. “I don’t know how you ever qualified for this job in the first place when you pull stunts like this, you absolute headcase!”

There was a part of him that thought it ironic that he was the one whose sanity was being questioned, but for once, he could see why. He betted that all he had to do was turn around and face the mirror to see how incredibly deranged he probably looked right now, like he’d murdered a small midwestern family or something, caked in blood and dirt.  

“What happened to fighting your own battles?” Ronan demanded.

“I wasn’t fighting your battle. I was dealing with a pest problem. Your battle is internal. Kavinsky’s an extraneous and counterproductive distraction, a bad influence who needed to be exterminated.” He explained.

“That wasn’t for you to fucking decide, Adam!”

Adam sighed and his ribs burned like they’d been exposed to hot metal. His entire body felt deflated and perforated, like he’d run himself through a shredder. The pain would eventually numb, but he didn’t think he had the energy in the moment, to stand here and take shit from Ronan, so he looked up to meet his eyes.

“I’m really tired,” he said. “I just want to take a hot shower and go to sleep.”

“He completely fucked up your face,” Ronan went on, even as his expression softened around the edges.

“Aw,” Adam muttered, feeling rather delirious. “Am I not pretty enough for you anymore?”

_“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”_

It was when Adam’s lower back once again met with the hard edge of the sink that Ronan realized how loud his voice had gotten. Immediately, he put a cap on his rage, his entire body shuddering with it. Ronan groaned, releasing Adam’s face to press a thumb to his own temple.  

He retreated at least four wide steps. “I’m sorry,” he started. Adam could tell he was still furious, it was rolling off of him in waves, his shoulders looked like they were strung up with invisible ropes, his palms were fisted and his mouth was a dark, hard line.

“I didn’t mean to… It’s just…” He fumbled. There was a part of Adam that was sardonically amused at watching him falter. It was so human. So unlike Ronan, that it was endearing in some way. “He could have fucking killed you!”

“He didn’t.”

“He’s _unhinged_ ,” Ronan insisted. “Who knows what he could’ve done?”

“It doesn’t matter now, I guess. Does it?”

“No,” Ronan let out another breath. Confliction played across his features. “Guess not.”

Ronan then took a cautious step forward, and when Adam didn’t react, he closed the distance between them to wrap his arms around Adam’s neck and leaned in, surprising Adam as all the vexation seemed to drain out of him to be replaced with a forbearing frown.

When Adam recognized the heavy flickers in his eyes as concern, he almost thought he was imagining it.

Ronan then pressed a kiss in between Adam’s eyebrows, his breath ghosting over his forehead and Adam closed his eyes, tilting slightly into it.

Ronan opened his eyes. “Don’t you ever do that again, you crazy bastard! Do you understand me?” Adam merely nodded, but it hurt to move, so he just sort of dropped his head into Ronan’s neck, whose skin was warm and still smelt faintly of cologne.

When Ronan helped him pull away so that he could examine his face again, he scowled. “The fuck are you grinning about, you lunatic?”

“I won,” Adam said, breaking into a bloodied smile that made him look like something out of a Stephen King movie.

“It sure looks like you did. What, are you a masochist or something?” Ronan muttered.

Adam merely shrugged. “I have a feeling Joseph Kavinsky won’t be bothering you again for a long time. I have a feeling I actually might have gotten through to him.”

“I don’t think a firing squad could get through to him.” Ronan replied, before shooting Adam a considering glance. “Would I hate to meet the other guy?”

Adam shook his head. “I didn’t touch him.”

Ronan frowned, clearly puzzled as he tapped his index finger against the side of his own head.    
  
“I think he might have clocked you right in the brain.”

When Adam just smiled, Ronan shook his head. “I can’t believe you…” his voice was tight as a bowstring as he continued, in the softest voice.

“I’m not worth it, Adam.”

Adam's throat was burning. "Maybe that's not for you to decide." 

For a long, heavy moment they stared at one another. Neither boy saying anything. A silent battle of the wills. The words jammed in their throats, their chests heavy with notions they couldn’t quite explain. Adam watched Ronan swallow as he traced a light finger over a scrape that had split Adam’s bottom lip open and continued its ragged way down his jaw. Adam’s blood caught on his finger and Ronan stared at it like a hemophobe who’d never seen red before.

His expression was still steely, but he seemed… distraught. It made Adam confused. What was it that was bothering him, exactly? Adam had long since given up expecting Ronan to be thankful, but he should be happy they’d eliminated a problem.

Now they could focus on Greenmantle in peace. He should be relieved to be rid of Kavinsky’s slithering shadow. He seemed like somebody who paid more heed to ends than to means anyway, so why was he fumbling now?

Adam didn’t understand.

Then again, he thought that the sky would turn orange and the entire world would be swallowed up by a giant black hole the day he finally came to truly understanding the mystery that was Ronan Lynch.

Adam winced just as Ronan’s hand dropped from his jaw to his chest and something dark and hollow flashed in Ronan’s eyes.

He looked to Adam for permission, and when Adam merely shot him a small nod, he peeled the hem of his shirt up to examine the newly formed scars underneath. “Shit damn, Parrish,” he muttered, as he pressed a hand flat against his abdomen and Adam sucked in a shuddered breath at the sudden warmth of it. “I could play Connect The Fucking Dots on you.”

“We could make skin constellations,” Adam muttered, with a dry chuckle.

“It’s not funny.” Ronan muttered, before leaning over and helping Adam struggle out of his t-shirt as gently as he could. He tugged the material up until Adam raised both his arms up above his head so that Ronan could maneuver them through the arm-holes. When he brought them back down, the shirt was ridden around his neck, so he obediently tucked in his jaw and let Ronan pull it up and over his head before he discarded it to a heap on the floor.

A couple new bruises flowered across his ribs and every breath felt like a damnation.

Ronan then strode over to the shower and turned it on for him, running his hand under the water to make sure it was temperate. “Have your shower,” he said and for the briefest moment, he lingered, before reaching up and rubbing the back of his head out of anxiousness or habit. “Do you uh… Need any help?”

“I’m fine,” the words dribbled out a little too enthusiastically and heat rapidly spread over Adam’s slow-numbing cheeks.

“Yeah, man. Right. Whatever. I’ll go… And… I’ll fuck off.” Ronan blabbed, already wheeling back swiftly before turning on his heel and slamming the door shut as he made his exit, leaving Adam alone in the bathroom to shiver and ruminate.

He turned around and took a look at himself in the mirror. The face of a gaunt, broken kid stared back at him. He had an angry darkening bruise across his cheek, right beneath his left eyelid, which had been sewn half-shut from all the swelling, and his right arm felt like it was going to come right off, as if his limbs were detachable.

He looked like a giant blood bruise. It was pretty easy to have seen in his reflection a younger version of himself, standing in the same blasted position, eyes blown wide, face skewered by a monster of unpredictable means. But this still felt strangely liberating, like he’d come full circle and it couldn’t get any worse from here on out.

So he pushed back the bile that had been steadily climbing up his throat, finished undressing and stepped beneath the hot, welcoming water of the shower.

The heat of it created a makeshift blanket, like sunlight on the back or being hugged from behind. Adam sighed into it, standing there until the water ran tepid and then cold.

By the time he’d finally changed and dried off, his body felt heavy as a casket and his hair looked like it’d been hit by a tornado, sticking up wet in some places and plastered flat to his forehead in others.

As he dragged himself drowsily out of the bathroom and made it to his bedroom, he found a glass of water, an aspirin and a granola bar waiting for him on his desk. Ronan ambled in a minute later, bearing an ice pack.

“I can take care of myself.” Adam snapped, but he was too sore to complain or make more of a fuss about it when Ronan merely muttered a nonchalant, “don’t care,” and firmly shoved the ice pack against his chest. The frigidness of it was jarring and Adam stumbled as he took it from Ronan’s hands, fractured ice pooling in his lungs. Ronan plopped himself onto Adam’s bed and handed him the glass and aspirin, which he readily accepted.

Adam scrunched up his nose as he stared down into the bottom of the glass which he’d initially thought was just water. “Is this… Honey-lemon?”

“Tea speeds up the healing process.” Ronan shrugged.

“I didn’t think you even knew how to make tea.”  
  
Ronan merely shot him a condescending grin before aiming a pointed finger at him. “Bottoms up,” he said. Adam shot the chartreuse liquid another distrustful glance before popping the pill. He then pressed the rim of it to his mouth and emptied the tea in three languid gulps. It tasted better than he’d expected, but he wouldn’t tell Ronan that; lest he offer him the means to gloat.

Adam handed the empty glass back to Ronan before joining him, carefully climbing into bed to rest on his back with the ice pack still pressed to his aching chest.

Ronan relieved the granola bar of it’s plastic wrapping and held it up to Adam’s mouth. Adam stared at it a moment before taking a meager bite.

“Why are you patronizing me?” he asked, after chewing and swallowing.

“ _You_ patronized _me_ by walking into _my_ battle. So maybe this is revenge.” Ronan said, before making Adam take another bite.

Adam would have laughed if laughing didn’t make his entire body hurt. It didn’t feel like revenge, it felt like being nursed. Except… This was Ronan Lynch at his kindest, and Adam wanted to indulge him, out of a sense of professional curiosity, if nothing else. This, was once again, proof of the good that Ronan was capable of, the empathy, the warmth. Even if it was out of a sense of obligation and annoyance.

“Thank you,” Adam muttered softly.

“ _Damn_ you,” Ronan retorted.

“Why are you so pissed?” he asked, reaching out and tilting Ronan’s chin up under his thumb.

The question only seemed to spur Ronan’s vexation on further, something disconsolate in his eyes.

“Take a wild guess,” Ronan finally answered, jaw tight and gaze incredulous.

Adam shrugged as Ronan fed him his third bite, even after he insisted he could hold a granola bar up to his own mouth just fine. “I spared you the trouble. I genuinely don’t see why you’re mad.” He said.

Ronan’s lip curled in a scowl, as he brushed Adam’s hand off. “You didn’t have to take an ass-kicking for me.”

“It's not like I was  _intending_ to get beaten up," he replied, in his defense. "It wasn’t supposed to go like that.”

“You were confronting a psycho. How did you expect for it to go?” Ronan asked, perking his chin up under his fist for that extra dramatic flair.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, stupidly, honestly.

“Why did you do it?” Ronan’s eyes hardened like marbles.

“He was texting you stupid taunts. I thought I could give him a piece of my mind. Shut him up for good. I was being mindless and reckless and I just… _went_ for it.”

“Yeah,” Ronan scoffed. “You’re real fucking gangster.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

“Hell yes you were.”

Adam grinned a little. "You have to admit the new bruises make me look kind of intimidating.”

“Parrish, you’re about as intimidating as a potted plant.”

“Rude,” Adam murmured grumpily, and Ronan withdrew the half-eaten granola bar and dipped to press a kiss to Adam’s jaw, and then his Adam’s apple and then the pulse point of his throat, where beat proof that he was still alive.

When Ronan maneuvered his head back up to meet Adam’s eyes, he ran a gentle palm over his left cheek and then something cold and unforgiving and hellbent seemed to brim behind his eyes. “I’m going to kill that no-good, headass, Jersey Shore reject bastard.” He muttered, words vicious and gnarled as the trees that used to loom outside of Adam’s lowly little bedroom window back at the double-wide.

Adam felt his throat tighten. “No, you’re not.”

“Ronan,” he warned, eyes pleading. _“You’re not.”_

"Just leave him alone." He insisted, but Ronan was inconsolable. 

He responded with a hooded look and a throaty growl, and still Adam pushed. “I just got you out of this mess, you’re not plunging back in.”

“Look what he did to you, man.” Ronan’s eyes were still glazed red with invisible revenge dreams.

Something in his chest tugged. “I’m alright.” Adam insisted.

Ronan blinked. “No you fucking aren’t. Just admit that you fucking aren’t. You don’t have to be this robotic all the time. There’s no way you started this. He must’ve swung first and kept on swinging.”

“I instigated him.” Adam said, with a small shrug. Ronan handed him the granola bar back and he scoffed down the remainder of it quickly. He watched him chew and swallow in indignant silence. “It couldn’t have been easy…” he mustered. “He must’ve brought back up all the shit with your dad.”

Adam felt a knot erupt in his stomach as Ronan leaned off from him in favor of glaring angrily up at the ceiling like everything that was happening was somehow its fault.

“It actually felt weirdly like closure. Like putting a cap on all of it. I don’t know how to put it in a way that doesn’t sound crazy, but… In a way, I think I needed this. I haven’t felt this alive since… well, since I left my hometown for this place. My childhood was most kids’ worst nightmare but my upbringing kept me grounded. Hyper-aware of the world and the cruelty it was capable of. Somewhere along the line… I think I needed a reminder of that.”

“You’re full of crap, you know that?” Ronan muttered, but the murderous glint in his eye seemed to dull, and Adam genuinely hoped he’d urged the metaphorical knives back into the drawer.

“Let me teach you to fight.” He then said, after a bout of quiet.

Adam thought he would throw up at the mere suggestion. “No.”

“Why the fuck not?”

“You don’t get it. I _chose_ not to fight.”

“Because you’re A unstable, B stupid, C a chaos junkie or D all of the above?” Ronan snapped.

“One cannot hope to end violence with violence.” Adam replied, simply.

“There’s nothing wrong with learning how to defend yourself, weirdo.”

“Why are you offering anyway? Does that dead unbeating heart of yours actually subscribe to humanly notions such as concern?” he was pushing on purpose, he wanted a confession from Ronan. He already knew that he was capable of it, but he wanted to see him admit it.

“I’m _concerned_ your stupidity might get you killed.” 

Adam blinked. “Says the guy plotting a series of fake murders to plant on a certified murderer.”

Ronan’s mouth twitched. “That’s not the same thing at all.”

“It’s on the same level of stupid.” Adam rationalized.

“I really hate you.”

“I know.”

“Why did you really do this?” Ronan mumbled, before taking Adam’s hand in his and studying the lines of his palms through hooded lashes.

“I already told you.”

Ronan traced a line up the center of Adam’s coarse palm.

“This won’t heal me.” He said, quietly.

Adam tried to ignore the way that his skin prickled beneath Ronan’s warm, barely-there touch, the way his heart clenched behind his bruised ribs. “No, but you’ll be one step closer.”

“You’re being unrealistic again.” Ronan pointed out. 

“On the contrary, I think now more than ever, my realism is paramount.” Adam argued.

Ronan scoffed. “Now you sound like Gansey,”

Adam was lost in the way Ronan ran his fingers over Adam’s skin, so very careful, so very precise, like a paintbrush to a canvas or a ray of sunlight spilling over a wall. His eyebrows dark and drawn up, his touch a calligrapher’s touch.

Adam had spent so long loathing the sight of his own hands, how they were always rough and scraped and cracked in places. How they were a remainder of all his misfortunes in life. The grease that had clung to his skin, like a slimy river in the darkest corners of the world. And the dirt. Sometimes, if he closed his fist really tight, he could still feel the cool grains of dirt, slipping through his fingers like ugly rain.

Ronan was looking at them now like they were something beautiful and it made Adam’s stomach hurt.

“I have my own theory on why you did it.” He said, still cradling Adam’s hands in his own.

“I’m all ears.”

“Maybe it’s because when you’re focused on other people’s problems it’s a lot easier to ignore your own.”

Adam frowned, his tone turning bitter. “Maybe it’s because I just didn’t want to see him play you like a fiddle again.”

Ronan looked offended. “Nobody plays me.”

“If claiming that helps you sleep at night, sure.”  
  
“Fuck you,” Ronan said, but there was no heat in his words. Adam frowned at the grainy fury in his tone, the way he got that little crease right in between his eyebrows.

He was a solar storm attempting hopelessly to contain an abundance of meteors. It seemed as though it was physically paining him to see Adam like this - and the mere idea of that unsettled Adam. Nobody had ever cared when he’d gotten hurt. Scrapes and bruises were an integral part of life. They appeared and disappeared like ghosts across his skin. His father had left him desensitized to gore.

So why did Ronan keep looking at him like that? Was he seeing something Adam wasn’t?

Had Adam finally managed to fully fracture that impenetrable shell? Did Ronan really… care about him in the way that he did? It seemed too difficult to believe. Too good to be true. Some kind of evil delusion. What was this to Ronan? What was _he?_

Adam couldn’t muster the magnitude of the genuine surprise and the utter discombobulation he was feeling in words, so he leaned up on his elbows, even though it pained him to move, and pressed a kiss to Ronan’s neck, right over his most prominent vein, the one that jutted out like a reminder of all the lightning he bore within him. Ronan was too late in hiding the shiver that stuttered through him at the contact. As he sucked in a sharp breath, Adam watched the muscles in his jaw tense.

Adam smiled against his skin and nuzzled his neck again.

“Stop,” he chided.

“Why?”  

“What did you even say to him?” Ronan asked, evading the question as he turned on Adam and pushed him back against the cushions with a gentle but firm hand to the chest. He’d long since abandoned the ice pack to secrete a puddle onto the hardwood nightstand, but neither of them were bothered to go load it back into the freezer downstairs.

“Doesn’t matter.” Adam said, softly.

“Why do you have to be so difficult?” Ronan asked.

“I’m giving you a sip of your own medicine. How does it taste?” Adam challenged.

“Like ass,” Ronan muttered, but then he was closing the distance in between them and kissing him again.

This kiss was drowsy and slow, a warm sliding of indulgent mouths. This kiss wasn't out of a need to get off, but out of need purely. Need for warmth, comfort, maybe a need for each other that they didn't know they possessed.

Adam could tell Ronan was purposely straying away from the sore side of Adam’s mouth, his kisses slightly lighter, slightly off-center than what they were used to. Adam brushed his tongue over Ronan’s bottom lip as he wrapped eager arms around his neck but ended up wincing in the process, this didn’t seem to escape Ronan’s attention as he offered him one final peck before pulling away and detangling from him.

“You need to rest.” Ronan insisted, when he made a disapproving sound.

“Can’t we just kiss?” Adam whined.

Ronan’s voice was a hoarse, reverent tremor. “I’m afraid I’ll break you.”

“Nothing breaks me anymore.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you can’t break what’s already been broken a dozen times.”

Ronan’s smile was watery and dull. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you from the start.”

He didn’t know how or when he’d managed to fall asleep, but he woke up to a dull azure glow and the soft material of Ronan’s sweatpants tickling his ear. His throat felt like drying cement and the bruise on his cheek throbbed painfully. Groaning softly, he turned his face into the hard pillow under his head.

His vision blurred grey. He’d been sleeping on Ronan’s thigh with one arm crooked under his knee, but he couldn’t remember falling asleep that way.

He lifted his head and rubbed his eyes to find Ronan’s face above him, his head lolling slightly and his gaze bleary as he stared listlessly out at the windows; boxes of cracking dawn spilling late moonlight into the shadow-smothered bedroom. The silence was practically edible, prickled only by the chirping songs of early morning birds and wee-hour crickets.

Ronan’s fingers were twisted in Adam’s hair, and as he twirled gentle fingers through it, sleep hung even heavier over Adam.

“What time is it?” he mumbled, voice slightly muffled against the warm fabric of Ronan’s pants.

“5.30 something,” Ronan replied dully.

“Jesus,” Adam said, pulling himself up even as his back protested and his head felt like it weighed a ton.

Ronan’s hooded gaze dropped to his shifting form.

“Did you get any sleep?” Adam asked.

“No.”

“What have you been doing up, then?” Adam asked, alarmed.

“Nothing.” Ronan muttered.

Adam frowned. “When did I fall asleep?”

“Dunno, man. Somewhere between your numerous protests of how tired you weren’t.”

“Shit,” Adam managed, his spine pressing into the soft pillow tucked behind him. “You drugged my tea, didn’t you?” It was a flimsy attempt at a joke, but Ronan didn’t crack a smile. Adam fixed his wrinkled t-shirt and turned to meet Ronan’s disillusioned gaze.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Stop worrying about it.”

When Ronan didn’t respond, Adam slid a hand under his cheek. “You need to get some shut-eye too.”

“You know,” Ronan muttered, completely ignoring Adam’s advice. “It started out as an accident.”

Adam narrowed his still sleep-ridden eyes. “I don’t follow.”

“The drug use.”

“Oh,”

“It was a particularly shitty night. My dreams kept chasing me into reality. So I took the car for a spin and somehow ended up at one of Kavinsky’s hot spots. We raced, he took me to The Oracle to get sloshed and the bastard slipped something a little extra into my drink. I didn’t know what I was taking. Not until it was too late.”

“How could you trust somebody like him? You’re smarter than that.”

“I don’t. Never have.” Ronan met his eyes.

Something dark and flammable stirred behind his irises. The blue muddled to black in the hazy dawn light. Understanding flooded through Adam.

“You did it on purpose. You knew the turn the night might take and you took the leap anyway. You expected things to go wrong, you were even counting on it.” He sighed and traced a vein that trailed down the side of Ronan’s neck and disappeared into his t-shirt. There was something oddly fascinating about the way the light diffused over Ronan’s skin, how he was stark and maleficent and alien in a way that was somehow painful, somehow unfair.

Here was Adam, dust-caked and selfish, and then there was Ronan, some poet’s dream, a warring star.

“I told you that you have self-destructive tendencies,” Adam added, swallowing as he watched Ronan watch the softening night.

“I know,” Ronan muttered. “You’re proof of that.”

Adam didn’t want to dwell on what he could possibly mean by that. If anything, Adam saw himself as a positive influence on Ronan’s life. Maybe it was just another throwaway insult at his expense. Maybe he meant the illicit nature of the relationship considering Adam’s professional commitment to the job.

“I thought I had something to prove.”

“To whom?”

“I don’t know. It fucked with Declan’s feelings, it addled my dreaming. The dreaming in particular had started to feel like a curse. It’s what got him killed in the first place.” Ronan’s voice cracked and he inhaled sharply through his nose, his eyes scanning the ground as he picked at the material of his trousers.

Adam kept his eyes keen on his and refrained judgement. “So the dissociation was… freeing. That’s how it started, anyway. Slow and steady like a bloody fever, but the next thing I knew it’d leached onto my veins. I couldn’t really breathe without it, or it felt that way anyway. That’s when it turned to sort of an addiction.”

“You’re addicted to pain,” Adam reasoned.

“Maybe,” Ronan admitted.

They were both quiet a moment. “So it was escapism. That’s unsurprising. I can’t believe it only took five and a half weeks of gentle coercion and me getting my ass handed to me by your dick of a nemesis to get you to admit it.”

Ronan was gaping at him. “My _nemesis?”_ he had to suppress a laugh as he repeated his words back to him. “Parrish, I officially nominate you king of the nerdom throne.”

Adam merely rolled his eyes. “Why do all your evasion techniques involve attempted insults?”

“Everything you say makes me wanna insult you.” He shrugged.

Adam scoffed. “You _like_ me,”

Ronan bit his lip. “Debatable.”

"Stop lying."

"I _don't_ lie."

"Then admit that you like me." Adam shrugged.

Ronan scoffed quietly. "I like you a whole lot less when you're being a fucking dimwit and going out and risking everything over an egoistic need for god knows what." 

"But you like me," Adam teased, just to bug Ronan further.

"I like you less and less by the passing minute." 

“Then why’d you kiss me, that night in your car?” Adam challenged.

“I thought you were done asking idiotic questions like this.”

“Tell me why.” He urged.

Ronan sighed, avoiding Adam’s gaze on purpose. “Because I have poorer self control than I thought.”

Adam couldn’t quite abort the smile that snuck up his face at that. He leaned in and pressed a peck to the side of Ronan’s mouth, Ronan grinned and caught his lower lip before he could pull away, dragging him into a kiss that made Adam feel like he’d swallowed the stars.

They fell asleep with their faces buried in each other’s necks, their arms wrapped around one another, their knees layered; and soft, sleepy moonlight sneaking in through the blinds.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- merry christmas & happy holidays in general you guys!! i hope y'all have a fabulous last few days of 2k16. i'll definitely for sure try to update once more before the new year, but no promises. x)  
> \- there's really only less than a handful of chapters left to go y'all :O  
> \- leave me a comment if you appreciated our boys just getting to seep comfort from each other & thank you so much for reading! <3


	20. Circles

_"Is love a wound which deepens as it dreams? I am sick of haunting myself from within, like an old house." - Erica Jong_

* * *

Adam woke up stiff and in considerably more pain than what he’d been in when he’d fallen asleep.

Sunlight slithered sneakily through the shuttered blinds, falling lightly across the wooden tiles and the bed and Ronan’s sleeping form in perfect glittering stripes.

When Adam’s eyes caught on Ronan’s face, his lashes hooded with sleep, his lips parted slightly; Adam decided that it was certainly a pleasant scene to wake up to, one he could selfishly see himself getting used to.

Despite the fact that his right leg felt like it was on fire and his cheek still hurt and he basically felt like he’d been left to bake in an oven overnight, there was a warm stirring in his chest.

He was feeling that strange quiet again. The kind of quiet that was almost devastating in its stillwater silence. Adam wanted to stay here forever, in the quiet, tangled in morning sheets.

He’d never have to be alone again. He’d never have to leave Ronan. He’d never have to worry about school or his future or whether he would survive a confrontation with a card-carrying killer. There was a part of him that wondered what would happen if their plan backfired, would Ronan blame him, despise him? Would he ever be able to forgive himself?

He’d been making rash decision upon rash decision but eventually, his inveterate practicality was going to catch up with him and leave him entwined in a wreck of his own design.

Adam didn’t think he had any space left to spare in that giant clusterfuck of regrets he kept stored away in the darkest depths of his brain.

Reality sunk in and suddenly he felt like he was caught in a dreamy haze of a current, the calm before the storm. This was a grim, prickling reality that made his skin itch. Today, Ronan would dream up all of Greenmantle’s damning evidence and tomorrow, they would end this, one way or another. The day after that… His contract would expire and he’d take the money from Declan even though it felt wrong on a thousand different levels and everything would… what? Go back to the way it’d been before? Change irreversibly? He didn’t know.

He couldn’t quite get himself to picture it. Life going back to the numb non-event it had been before he’d signed up for this job. He felt like a different person somehow, as if he’d aged six years in six weeks.

Metaphorically, of course, because in other ways he felt… younger, more alive. Everything felt more tangible, even the sky, with its edible blue, and the sounds of routine traffic resounding in his good ear like a singing stream, and the truth of his own body.

Embarrassment scalded his cheeks as he spent a million more seconds than usual in a flimsy attempt to push himself up off the bed. His twinging muscles protested and he had to bite down on his tongue as he let out what sounded like half a curse word and half like a cat when its tail had been stepped on.

“Fuck,” Adam groaned, as he tried again.

Kavinsky had gotten in some really good hits. He was shamefully bruised and his body now functioned like a detached puppet, cut loose from its strings.

Besides him, Ronan stirred. Adam didn’t look his way, still attempting to get his useless legs to stop stinging so that he could move maybe, without keeling over.

“Mm,” Ronan muttered something inconceivable beneath his breath, then. “Where do you think you’re going? Come back to bed.”

Adam couldn't help but think that his voice sounded low and smooth in the mornings, like heated silver.

“I’m going to make us some breakfast, and maybe down another painkiller. Or you know, ten. I feel like a fucking car crash.”

Ronan smirked into his pillow. “Parrish, you _are_ a fucking car crash.”

“Thanks,” Adam replied, dully.

“Do you need any help?” Ronan asked, even though he still sounded half-asleep.

“No.”  
  
Ronan took a deep breath and pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes as he turned over on his back. “You know, the offer still stands. I could teach you to fight. It’d be great. You’ll feel like a character from Mortal Kombat by the time I’m done with you.”

Adam tilted his head to the side. “What is Mortal Kombat?”

Ronan’s jaw actually dropped. “Get out of my sight! You’re vermin upon this world.”

“Ookay,” Adam said, just as Ronan locked his fingers around Adam’s arm and tugged once in an attempt to pull him back into bed. Even though he'd hardly applied any pressure at all, he couldn't hide his wince.

“Ow,” Adam snapped, and Ronan immediately dropped his hand, realization flashing in his eyes.

“Fuck. That bad huh?”

“He really banged me up.” Adam nodded, defeatedly.

“I should go and return the favor.” Ronan’s words were grinded between teeth.

“I think I was clear the last fifteen times I said no.”

Ronan grumbled quietly as Adam pulled himself up with blinding resolution before taking a deep, staggering breath. Even though sunlight bathed the room, the tiles beneath his feet were cold. When he turned, Ronan was already pulling a t-shirt on. “I’ll handle breakfast. You just handle yourself, okay? The medicine cabinet is down the hall to your right.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “So are you my nursemaid now?”

Ronan hit him lightly behind the head as he maneuvered past him. “Shut up and take your pills, bitch.”  

It was mortifying, to say the least, when Ronan had to help him out of his sweater and t-shirt before his morning shower, and even worse every time he was unsuccessful in veiling the clear jolts of pain that shot through his body whenever he exerted more pressure than his fumbling corpse of a body would allow. 

It was nicer when Ronan was there at every turn to steady him, or how while attempting to complete some online coursework later that afternoon, Ronan had plopped down at the very end of the couch and pulled Adam's bare feet up into his lap. 

"What are you doing?" Adam snapped, flushing.

Ronan merely shrugged as he clasped Adam's left foot in his hand and began to knead his way from the sole to the upper curves of his foot. Ronan's skin was a warm contrast against the cold, sore tendons of his feet. "Letting out my anger and frustration."

"By giving me a foot massage?"

"Why not?"

Adam thought his cheeks would melt off his face. "You don't have to do this," he said, in a small voice that sounded unconvincing, even to his own ear.

Ronan just shot him a mulish look and continued what he was doing. Eventually, Adam gave up protesting and allowed himself to lean into it.

Ronan was suspiciously good at giving a massage, and it was almost ridiculous how the mere press of his fingers against the hardened bones of his midfoot sent all his nerves aflutter. Ronan's fingers worked in rapid, meticulous successions and applied just the right pressure to release tension.

Adam felt his entire body relax and deflate as cool fingers slid in between his toes and thumbed over the coarser spaces in between.

"You're really good at that." He remarked, softly.

"I'm really good at a lot of things." Ronan replied, with a smirk.

"You've done this before?"

Ronan was quiet a moment, then. "I'd give my mom foot massages whenever she'd had a long, exhausting day. We'd sit out on the porch during windswept evenings. I'd tell her everything we learnt at school and she'd talk to me about the calf-birth that she'd witnessed, or about her own childhood. A lie, of course. Planted in her head by my father," his voice took on a bitter edge, then. The diaphanous blue of his eyes seemed to diminish. "She didn't even know that she was just someone's dream girl brought to cruel life. A direct result of my father's incompetence when it came to connecting with real women. He always got too goddamn caught up in his own whimsies to bother with what reality had in store." 

Adam didn't know what to say to something like that, but Ronan changed the topic almost immediately after and didn't bring it up again, so Adam kept quiet. He chose instead, just to watch Ronan knead soft, lingering circles into the balls of his feet. It should've been, considering their companion-client status, disreputable, but it was instead, soothing.

He hadn't realized the stress nest that had become his brain until now. Once again: the dizzying bite of warmth inside him and the thought of a touch, neither vicious nor sexual in intent, swarmed him. It was so perplexing that he was almost raked with disbelief. This wonder of a boy, who'd spent their first couple weeks reprimanding him to the bone now assuaging his pain, piece by piece. Suddenly, Ronan was running his hands beneath Adam's pants legs and pressing kisses up his calf. Adam let out a startled breath through his nose and relaxed into his touch, the heat of it resounding somewhere further down than just his gut.

Eventually, he let go of all thought and tilted his head back, the anxiety in him transforming into the lulling, pleasurable sensation of Ronan taking apart his body.

At one point, Adam felt his eyelids slope shut and Ronan pinched the fair skin of his ankle. "You didn't tell me you had a foot kink, Parrish."

"I do not!" Adam said, laughing and poking Ronan in the stomach with his toe.

* * *

“So… How’s the little pissant doing?” Declan asked, over the phone that afternoon. “Still cursing my name?”

“I think he’ll be okay,” he replied. Adam’s fingers were actually shaking awfully as he held the damn thing against his good ear. “He hasn’t really brought the events that transpired at lunch up again.”

“Typical. It’s either rage or repression with bro dearest.”

Adam said nothing, but his fingers felt slick with butter. He actually had to lean against the wall to steady himself a little better. His chest felt ransacked with guilt, his heart raced.

“I’m worried, Adam. The contract’s almost up. Will you stay for a little longer? You don’t have to worry about the pay. I’ve got that covered. I could double it. Triple it.”

Adam’s fingers continued to falter against his will, his gums felt like they were melting inside his mouth. He felt like some kind of dirty fraud. _Hey, Declan. So I know you’re my employer and everything but did you know I’ve been making out with your brother? Great motivational technique, right?_  
  
“No,” Adam replied immediately, as he winced to himself. It didn’t help that his entire body still felt like roadkill. “I’m sorry. I can’t do that.”

On the other line, Declan sighed audibly. “It’s… alright. I get it. I’ve already asked too much of you. I just… Man, I don’t think I’ll be able to convince him to get a sponsor. He never listens to me. I doubt that’s miraculously changed.”

“I’ll talk to him about it. We still have time.”

“Right.” Silence, and then. “Thank you. Once again, for all of your help and support. I know it’s your job, but my brother’s a handful and I’ve had people give up on us in the past. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for him. I’d just like you to know that. Someday, I hope to reconnect with him. Make things right. Lunch the other day felt like some kind of a wake-up call. Hate to admit it, but you were right.”

Adam frowned, his stomach turned unpleasantly. He was sure this conversation was going to leave him nauseated and absolutely disgusted with himself.

“About what?”

“Maybe I was showing my support in all the wrong ways. Getting pissy at him, isolating him from Matthew and confining him to that large, empty house to be all by his lonesome was wrong. Even if it was his idea to get away from our childhood home. It was still probably the opposite of helpful. Hell, it could’ve fueled his fires. There’s still no doubt in my mind that Ronan’s at fault here, but maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to shrug off some of the blame. I hold myself equally responsible for a lot that’s gone down. I’m supposed to be protecting my little brothers, and I know that somehow, I’ve failed them. Both of them.”

Adam sighed. He was a liar, he was a coward. He no longer felt like he deserved any of the money he’d worked so hard to earn. The least he could do was reassure the guy. “You tried your best. You thought you were doing the right thing. Most times, the right thing isn’t the easy or favorable thing, but that’s okay. All that matters in the long run is that you didn’t give up.”

“Thanks, man. I… I really think I needed to hear that.”

“Of course.”

“I’ll see you soon? You could drop by my office on Monday for payment. Cool?”

Adam gulped. “Uh, sure thing. Thank you.”

“Later.”

“Yeah.”

Adam thought he was going to be sick. No, he was sick. This was sick, right?

It didn’t feel sick, not when he was pressed flushed against Ronan, not when he somehow felt like this was functioning like salve to a lot of Ronan’s wounds, and by extension, to a lot of his own. He tucked his phone back into his pocket and just leaned against the wall for a moment, trying to get his nerves to settle.

He was probably going to have to skip his next meal.

“Hey,” Adam swivelled his gaze to find Ronan lingering against the door frame.

“How much of that conversation did you hear?”

Ronan smiled, it was slow and secretive. “What conversation?”

“Asshole,” Adam muttered, half-heartedly.

“How do you feel now?” he asked, sauntering into the room. He looked like he’d just emerged from the shower. He smelt seductively like aftershave. Little droplets of water still clung to his neck and jaw, the moisture dampening his t-shirt in places.

Adam had to look away. “I feel…” he began. “I feel like I got beaten up by god.”

Ronan scowled. “The god of _what?_ Arsedom?”

Adam shrugged before pushing off the wall.

“Hey,” he said. “You ready?”

Ronan nudged his shoulder lightly. “About that. I think it’ll be better for all parties involved if you just leave me to handle this by myself. Go take a walk or meet your girlfriend or sniff your highlighters. Be a free elf.”

“That’s ridiculous. I’m coming with you.”

“You really don’t have to.”

“I want to.” Adam insisted.

Ronan’s loose gaze solidified into a steely stare. “Well,” he said. “I don’t want you there.”

“Really,” Adam almost scoffed. “You seemed to _want_ me plenty the other night. When you -”

“Shut up, Parrish.” Ronan snapped venomously, cutting him off.

“I don’t get it. What’s the problem?”

“The problem is I’m not sure you’ll be able to fucking handle it. Not everything in my head is a great thing, Parrish. Believe it or not. I told you. And when I’m bringing something back from a dream, sometimes I can’t bring back only one thing.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“It’s too dangerous. Look at yourself, man. You’re not in the kind of position -”

Now Adam cut Ronan off, and he could tell by the look of surprise on Ronan’s face that he was amused by this bold interruption. “Let me worry about myself. You just have to get this done so you worry about that. Besides, I’ve been coordinating with Gansey. He’s coming too.”  
  
Now Ronan just looked betrayed. “You rung the Gansey bell? Not cool, man.”

“Sulk all you want but we’re going to be there. Right by your side. So deal with it.”

Ronan just shrugged. “Fine. Cool. I’ll make sure that your funeral’s an open casket. Just so that everyone can see the gruesome outcome of your ever growing stupidity.”

Adam raised both eyebrows. “You mean my loyalty?”

Ronan’s lips curled. “I so wish I could hurt you right now.”

When Adam just stared at him, to Adam’s utter surprise, Ronan leaned in and pressed a quick kiss right in between his eyebrows before staring down and whispering against his mouth. “Get dressed,” he said, his breath smelling like minty mouthwash. “It’s homecoming day.”

Adam didn’t pretend to understand the insinuation of those words as Ronan wheeled around and walked off. It wasn’t even that Adam was confident. In fact, he was in pain and dead afraid of all the impossibilities that brewed and fizzled in Ronan’s head, but he was also aware that he’d convinced Ronan of this and brought the Gray Man into it.

That in the end, it was all on him if Greenmantle exploded in their faces. So he had to come face-to-face with the consequences that awaited him, even if they weren’t to his liking or calibration. Finally, he sighed and closed his eyes. Giving himself a moment to compose all the hatred and fear and nausea that kept poking at his windpipe like variously shaped blades.

Right now, they had a perverse murder to set into motion.

* * *

Gansey had a way of clogging up a room like a few too many sprays of rich, dense perfume. 

Adam watched as he studied Ronan with ruminating eyes and attempted to understand what could possibly be going through his head. He had a finger pressed to his bottom lip and had assumably traded his wireframes for contact lenses. He was dressed in a deep purple polo shirt and a real live pair of boat shoes.

Adam thought that Richard Gansey the Third was the only person he knew who could carry magenta off like it could be a second skin. 

One could tell, just by the way his mouth curved to form words, or the way he smiled at you (with pearl-white teeth and dimpling cheeks) that he was the sort of person who never forgot to turn on his indicators, the sort of person who stopped to help you carry your groceries inside if he were your neighbor, the sort of person who was the kind of perfect that it made everyone else around him just a little bit uncomfortable.

It was fascinating, how Ronan, who was all questionable decisions and broken traffic lights and chaotic whims was best friends with the guy who held the door for you as you made your way out and always tipped the waiter at restaurants and sauntered around like a sentient stack of dollar bills. But then again, what was Adam doing here, with them, in the midst of a place so glorious that a part of him was beginning to forget he was still conformed to city streets? 

Gansey’s eyes had widened the second he’d laid eyes on him. _"What in god’s name happened to your face?”_

Adam cringed even though he knew it was coming. There was no way to hide the tinted fresco of blue-purple sores that’d seized his pale skin. Souvenirs of his stupidity.

“It’s nothing.”

“Sure doesn’t look like nothing. What’s going on, Adam? Are you alright? Are you in trouble? Is there any way that I can possibly help?”

The other thing about Gansey was that he would extend his courtesies to you without even considering that there might just be a chance that the person he was offering to aid didn’t want his help.

It was harmlessly generous of course, if a little intolerant. Adam wouldn’t hold it against him though. He was used to intolerant people. 

“I’m fine,” he assured. “I really don’t want to talk about it.”

Gansey’s expression soured. “Did Ronan -” 

Adam cut him off immediately, figuring he knew where the conversation was headed. “It has nothing to do with Ronan.” 

From across the room, Ronan opened one eyelid and met Adam’s gaze. Adam caught it before stubbornly looking away and meeting Gansey’s scrutinizing eyes instead.

It was the concern on Gansey’s face that thawed Adam’s slight irritation. He felt weirdly humbled to be a person that a person like Gansey cared about. He didn’t think he was the type of person  _anyone_  would want to invest in, let alone Gansey. 

Another displeased part of his brain was enraged at the fact that he kept involuntarily putting Gansey up on a pedestal. Maybe Gansey just had that effect on people, making him automatically five steps ahead of you on that stairway to heaven. 

“But -” Gansey began, once again, Adam didn’t let him finish. “I  _told_  you. It’s alright.”

“Okay, it’s just… If you ever need anything… I just want you to know that I’d be happy to help, especially if it means you don’t have to come into work every morning looking like you just lost a match with a world class wrestler.” 

“Okay. Thanks.”

Gansey, despite still being clearly troubled, beamed. “You’re positively welcome!” 

“So what happens now?” Adam asked, eager to change the subject.

Ronan had closed his eyes back up again. Adam leaned his head a little towards Gansey to speak in a hush, as not to wake Ronan up in case he’d fallen asleep as planned.   
  
“Adam, I will not pretend to understand the ways of the whimsical. I do believe our jobs are confined to standing amongst the sidelines and waiting for something to go 'BOOM!'" 

Adam didn't like the sound of that, but refrained from saying anything else. The two boys trained their eyes on their friend who was currently lying on his back with his eyes closed in the middle of his childhood home.

The Barns was like some sort of safe haven caught in between the twinkling past and a bittersweet dream. Adam didn’t know how else to describe it. The place was vast and stained with burning inklings of old memories. Adam thought he could almost see ghosts in the shadows of the family that used to live here, Ronan’s family; his lifeline. 

He felt like he was standing in the midst of someone else’s origin story. The house they were in was thick with the scent of musk and old wood varnish, the walls seemed to gleam like they were splattered in stars or tears, photo frames hung off them like colorful portals to older, happier times.

Even though he was hard for hearing, he could hear the livestock rustling around in their penns outside, the birds chirping animatedly.

Maybe, if he tried hard enough, the house would whisper secrets to him about a Ronan Adam desperately wanted to get to know. A Ronan Adam thought he might just be getting a glimpse of now.  
  
The entire ride over here, Ronan had taken on the quality of static; quiet and yet wrecked with nerves. When Adam tried to reach out to him, he’d just given him the cold shoulder, but Adam couldn’t really blame him now. It’d probably been an age since Ronan had visited the Barns, it must’ve trudged up all kinds of bottled up emotions.

It could possibly bring a mind to shut down or function slower, muggier. This was the kind of heartbreak that never quit shattering itself. 

Adam nudged Gansey’s shoulder lightly. “Why did Ronan insist on doing this here?” 

“It feels like coming full circle perhaps. This is the place where his father died, Ronan thinks he’s avenging him, so it makes sense that he’d want to plot Greenmantle’s damnation here.” 

“You don’t believe that Ronan’s avenging his father?”

Gansey blinked. “Pardon?” 

“You said  _thinks_ ,” Adam pointed out.

Gansey’s expression turned skeptical and his lips pursed in dismay. “I think that there are some questions to which there are no answers. Is there a guarantee that this is going to make Ronan feel any better? Is it medicinal? Or will it just bring more despair and chaos to his life? 

When has revenge ever been anything more than a bitter planted seed that rots one’s insides? In stories of Glendower, they wrote about a king who was livid for justice, but I think Glendower knew better than to test fate, you cannot hope to wipe up blood by spilling more blood, you cannot cure a disease by spreading more of it around.

I’m doing this because I want Ronan to understand, that painful as it is, he must learn to forgive himself and others around him. He must learn to let go. Once he is finished obsessing over Greenmantle’s downfall, he will realize the crux of this matter. How this is all just a distraction to keep him from facing his fear.”

Something far-away settled in Gansey’s eyes, like ashes or river water. “I’ve faced my fears and it taught me that sometimes, the only way to abate your pain is by embracing it first.”

Adam almost smiled. “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to explain to him.”

“It’s too bad even an earthquake couldn’t move him.” Gansey muttered.

His respect for Gansey grew leaps and bounds in merely the stretch of that wise speech and suddenly, he thought he understood the boy besides him a little better, like someone had unfogged the glass that’d been separating the two of them. 

Quiet fell over them once again as they watched nothing happen. Ronan twitched in his sleep, a crow cawed from somewhere, the fan over their heads spun drowsily. 

“So…” Gansey began, tapping his fingers against his pants legs. “Have you.. uh…” he cleared his throat. “Spoken to Jane recently?”

“Jane?”

“Oh, silly me. Blue. I meant have you spoken to Blue?”  
  
“You call her Jane?” Adam frowned. 

“Ah, yes.” Gansey nodded.  
  
_“And she allows you to?”_  
  
Gansey shrugged. 

“Man, what’d you do. Hypnotize her?” 

Gansey shrugged again. “She objected at first, but I do think we’re beginning to understand each other. I’m hoping to see her again soon. She didn’t… ah… She didn’t outrightly come out and say that she would like to see me again, but I’m thinking of stopping by Nino’s on the way back from here. What do you think? Will she be delighted to see me or will she give me hell for showing up uninvited before breaking into a well-paced speech about how my chauvinistic tendencies know no boundaries and that I must respect her space?” 

“I would usually advise the latter, but you’ve managed to perform a miracle by getting her to go out with you in the first place and you’re already on a nickname basis. So I’ll say go for it. If you want. I don’t know.” It wasn’t like Adam was in a position to be doling out relationship advice, considering his own baffling predicament. That’s the only way he could define this…  _thing_  he and Ronan had.

A goddamn predicament. 

Okay, maybe it was a pleasant predicament, but a predicament nonetheless. 

“What happens if Greenmantle doesn’t fall for it?” Gansey asked. 

“Even the most powerful of men bend to blackmail. You can’t fight hard evidence into submission.” 

Gansey faltered before drawing his mouth into a thin line. “I just want the two of you to be careful. There are no guarantees when it comes to such, ah, precarious plots.”

Adam could tell by the way he said ‘precarious’ that he was using it as a substitute for a much harsher word in his diplomacy. 

“Don’t worry. We’ve got this.” Adam reassured, just as Ronan’s eyes flew open and he let out what sounded like something between a shriek and a sob. 

Adam reared his head just as Gansey took a step forward to assist. “It’s okay,” Ronan mustered, breathing rather heavily. “I’m okay.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” Gansey asked, pointing at the large tear in the sleeve of Ronan’s jacket. It looked like it’d been ripped apart by something with sharp teeth. 

Ronan grinned. “Adam’s DIY Murder Manual was comprehensive as shit. Everything was whittled down to the minute detail. It wasn’t so bad, except for the night-terror-almost-chewing-my-arm-off part.” 

Gansey shook his head, patted Ronan down for injuries like a father skirting his son for scrapes and then let out an exhaustive sigh. Adam felt a pang of utter relief. If there was one thing he could still rely on after everything that’d derailed him, it was his organizational skills. 

Ronan’s smile dropped as he met Adam’s eyes. “Here -” he said. “Here’s your shit. The lies you wanted.”

The words sounded like an accusation, and Adam didn’t appreciate the tone. Then again, it was his idea in the first place, wasn’t it? Maybe he deserved that morbid tone and the difficulty of acceptance in his eyes. He thrust a bulging, oversized manila envelope at Adam, full, presumably, of the evidence to frame Greenmantle.

It took Adam too long to realize that Ronan wanted him to take it, and then a second longer to shift his mind to the mechanics of taking it. Adam told his hand to reach out, and reluctantly, it did. 

_Get it together, Adam._  
  
There was blood on the envelope, and now, on Adam’s hand.

He asked, “Did you get everything?”

“It’s all there.”

“Even the -”

_“It’s all there.”_

What an impossible and miraculous and hideous thing this was. An ugly plan hatched by an ugly boy now dreamt into ugly reality.

Gansey tried to help Ronan stand up, but Ronan shrugged him off. “I told you,” he said. “I’m good.” 

“Ronan, there are many creative adjectives I can come up with for this little mare’s nest that we’re in, but  _good_  is certainly not one of them.” Gansey supplied. 

Then, as Ronan pretended like this entire debacle didn’t faze him and Adam stared at the blood staining his hands, Gansey proposed a viable, if temporary, solution.

“So,” he said. “Who’s hungry?” 

Later that day, once Gansey had dropped them back off after a healthy bout of milkshakes and a quick dinner, Adam found a small labelled container sitting on his nightstand. He retrieved the object and stared down at it beneath the dim glow of the lamplight. Adam twisted off the lid. Inside was a colorless lotion that smelled of mist and moss. Replacing the lid with a frown, he turned the container over, looking for more identifying features.

On the bottom, Ronan’s handwriting labeled it merely: _Manibus. For your hands._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- if you get the little gallavich reference i tossed in here then we can & must immediately become friends ^_^  
> \- please leave me a comment!!!  
> \- thank you sm for reading & happy new year!! <33


	21. From The Morning Heat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- explicit content ahead, be warned. ;)

_"The boy's first word for pain is the light's new word for home." - Phillip B. Williams_

* * *

“What was that for?” Adam asked, as he invited himself into Ronan’s bedroom, walking in through the ajar door. For once and to the relief of his eardrums, he was listening to his music on his hefty headphones rather than over the loudspeakers.

Ronan eyed him for a second before pulling his headphones down to rest around his neck. “I think it was inscribed pretty fucking clearly on the label. Have you forgotten how to read?” 

“Why?” 

Ronan shrugged. “Consider it a present.” 

“Thank you? I don’t think it was entirely necessary…”

“Have you seen your hands? It’s like you use limestone rocks as a substitute for bars of soap.”

Adam managed a dull smile.

“Ronan,” he said, shifting so that he could join him on the bed. “Can I tell you something?” 

The other boy shrugged again. His music still blasted from his headphones, Adam could hear it, but he wasn’t able to make out the words.

Perhaps somebody with two-functioning ear drums would’ve found it easier to decipher.

“Our time’s almost up.”

When Ronan just arched an eyebrow, Adam elaborated. “We had to talk about it eventually. I’ll be taking my leave soon.”

He shrugged. “So? It’s not like you’re moving cross country.”

“No,” Adam agreed. “But I will no longer be contractually obligated to you.”

“Yeah,” Ronan said. “Thank fuck for that."

Adam fell gravely silent. He felt like a coil was being wrung taut in his stomach. Surprise dawned over him when Ronan seemed to take notice. “I meant it like it’ll be fucking great to not have to hear you prattle on about professionalism and shit because you’re feeling guilty conscious again.” He abated.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said, with a small sigh. “I’m just not used to…” his voice trailed off. 

Ronan sat up a little. “Not used to what?”

“Being wanted.”

Ronan was quiet a moment, but then he sat up even straighter and wrapped his hands around Adam’s neck to pull him close. “Idiot,” he whispered, burrowing his nose into Adam’s bruised cheek. He smelt strangely like a wet sidewalk and lingering cologne.

A sillage from a dream.

“What?” Adam said, as he pressed a precise hand over Ronan’s chest before examining the cross that rested around his neck and turning it around in his hand. It glinted almost like a dagger beneath the light, which Adam thought was rather ironic; for a holy instrument to have something in common with a weapon.

When Ronan didn’t immediately answer, Adam frowned. “Why do you still wear this?” he asked. Ronan’s gaze dropped to where he was fiddling with the neck piece.

The crucifix was cool beneath his fingertips. Adam thought strangely of how many times Ronan had touched this. Of how it clung to him day and night, in the shower…

“I don’t know. Out of habit, I guess?” He replied. 

Adam bit his bottom lip. “I almost can’t believe my fingers don’t burn against it.”

“What do you think you are, Parrish. A vampire?” Ronan smirked, but then his smile dropped, to be replaced with something so serious it seemed to pull at all his handsome features. Something reverent. “It’s stupid how much I want you.” He said. “And I don’t know how to reassure you or what the right thing to say is. But I just...” he cleared his throat. “I wanted you to know that.” 

Adam dropped the cross and looked up to meet Ronan’s eyes. They were literally the bluest eyes he’d ever fucking seen. That surreal calm at the bottom of a swimming pool. Staring straight into a sun-kissed sky. Morning fog. Bright neon lights on a deserted highway stretch. Adam wanted to step into those eyes. He wanted to live in them. Something beneath his lungs tugged painfully.

Ronan ran his thumb along the side of Adam’s mouth and down his jaw. Shivers skittered up his spine but he sat still as bone. “You didn’t have to do that. Get the life beaten out of you for me. You didn’t have to stay when all I did was coerce you to leave. You didn’t have to help me live out my murder fantasy or kiss me back. You’re a fucking conundrum, Parrish." 

Adam wasn’t sure he had all the answers himself, but he attempted to put it in words Ronan might understand. “I think I made you into a challenge. Maybe a part of me wanted to prove something to myself. Maybe a part of me saw something in you that I used to see in myself.”

“And what’s that?” Ronan’s lip curled, his finger continued down his throat and pressed against Adam’s pulse point.

Adam wondered if he could feel how hard and fast his heart had begun to beat.

“Possibility,” he said, his voice a dull dying candle in the wind. “When the rest of the world’s already thrown up its hands and given up on you.”

Ronan’s expression was rummaging and unreadable.

“Tell me something. Omitting all the sarcasm and the humor and your passive aggressive rage and your poetic swearing. Are you willing to make a change? Have these past few weeks influenced you at all? Was all that hard work I poured into you worth it?” 

“You think my swearing is poetic?” Ronan was almost smiling. Adam felt like there were invisible energies between them, vibrating on paranormal frequencies. Ronan’s finger dropped from his skin but then he leaned in and kissed him. Adam’s mouth opened magnetically at this point, and he slid his tongue into his mouth before catching his lower lip between his lips and tugging ever so-slightly.

“Not an answer,” he whispered, into Ronan’s open mouth.

“No?” Ronan asked, cocking his head and pressing a kiss to the side of his mouth. 

“No,” Adam said, chuckling a little as the hand at the back of his neck ran light circles into his hair. “Does it still hurt?” he asked. 

“A little,” Adam admitted.

“Please,” he added, catching Ronan’s right hand and pulling away from his mouth. “Answer me.” 

“What if I say no?” 

“Then you’ll hurt my feelings.” He said it in an airy voice, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t even kidding. So much had changed for him, and if this hadn’t had the same effect on Ronan then Adam didn’t know what he would do…

“Yeah, Parrish. You win the fucking Nobel Prize for making the impossible possible.” 

“There was always possibility,” Adam pointed out. 

He rolled his eyes. “What I’m saying is, I’ll _try_. I’ve got to repay the favor for _this_ daring act of stupidity somehow, right?” he said, grabbing Adam’s face by his cheeks where he was marked like a world map of tragedy and terrible luck.   

Those words seemed to raise all of Adam’s dead. Adam leaned in and tackled him into another urgent, enveloping kiss that left them both breathless each time they pulled away. Adam could feel Ronan’s pulse beating in his throat.

He could taste his breath in his mouth. Their lips were conquerors, invading one another’s bodies. 

Ronan twisted his fingers in Adam’s t-shirt collar as he let go. Their foreheads were still pressed together. Adam nudged at his nose lightly and Ronan tilted his head so their cheeks rested against each other, both of which were warm. The bedroom was so shapeless in the dark, Ronan was the only solid structure to lean against, to put his faith into.

“You were wrong,” Adam finally said, when the silence felt like it would stretch taut on till morning. When Ronan frowned, he explained. “You said this was a coping mechanism. Do you remember?” Ronan managed a small nod.

“It’s not, you know. I don’t think. Not for me.” 

Ronan pressed his thumb into his jaw. “I didn’t mean it like…”

“I know how you meant it. I just thought I should tell you.”

“Yeah,” Ronan said. “I think a coping mechanism would’ve worn off by now.” 

Adam pulled slightly away and stared at a fixed point on the wall behind Ronan’s head. “It’s just… Difficult for me. I had this air-tight plan for where my life was headed, I had my every move plotted out. Calculated, analyzed and reanalyzed. This is not how I pictured things taking a turn. I don’t think I saw a turn coming at all. This is just… unpredictable and confusing. I feel out of balance. No offense, I don’t mean it as an insult or anything but everything’s felt derailed ever since we crossed paths.”

Ronan let out a languid sigh. “You can’t forecast and choreograph your way through life, Adam. Shit just happens. It’s a current that carries you, _you_ don’t carry _it_.”

 _Adam_. The name came out so sweetly, so unintentionally. Smooth as butter out his lips. He’d never been fond of his own name, it was a bit too common, a bit too meh. It was a name given to him by his loveless parents and yet… Adam dropped the thought and nodded.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t really stop me from trying.”

Ronan narrowed his eyes. “Why is order so important to you anyway?”

Adam stared at him like it should be obvious. “Order is important to everything. Even in nature.” 

“What about storms then? They’re forces to be reckoned with. They’re not orderly.”

“Yes, and they leave insurmountable damage in their wake.” Adam pointed out.

“Well,” Ronan smirked. “Aren’t these uncontrollable and damaging storms a part of nature too?”

“They do play a role, yes. They’re facets of…” Adam frowned, his words drifting away from him as he registered the implication of that statement.

“You can’t do that.”

Ronan had a full-blown grin on his face at this point. The asshole.

“What’d I do?”

“Twist my words to fit your agenda.”

Ronan feigned outrage. “And what is my oh-so-homo agenda, Parrish? To whisk you away on my white horse?”

Adam wanted so badly to be annoyed, but he couldn’t quite suppress the smile spreading across his face. “More like on your shark of a BMW.” 

Ronan smiled and ran his knuckles over his head, dropping his gaze.

 “You know…” Adam began, after a minute. “For all these years, I’d thought myself as broken? Not physically, of course. Not even mentally, but emotionally maybe. Scarred. Damaged. Call it whatever you want but I thought that this would be it for me. That I’d die alone, bitter and dismayed. My parents’ marriage wasn’t exactly a field to bat on and this sounds idiotic, but it’d felt like some light inside me had just gone out and left me numb, hollow. A shell. That my father…” his voice shrunk to a shrill whisper. “That he’d beaten all the capability to love out of me.” 

Ronan remained stoic and silent until he was sure that Adam had finished his piece. When he finally spoke up, his tone was quiet, cautious, as if he were reading out a eulogy. 

“That’s what I felt like too. After dad kicked the bucket.” 

“Oh.”

“For the record, I’m so fucking sorry about that bastard you have to share genes with. I can’t even imagine what it must’ve been like, to loathe your own fucking family.”

“I don’t,” Adam admitted, and the words were out before he could yank them back under.

“Even after everything they’ve put you through?” Ronan sounded unconvinced.

Adam’s voice was heatless. “They don’t deserve my attention. They never wanted it in the first place.”

It was the corpse of hatred that was left inside of him, after all the rage and hurt had ebbed away, all that remained was this draining nothingness. 

“Nah,” Ronan said, his breath tickled his upper ear as he leaned in and pressed a firm kiss to his temple. “You’re right. They don’t.”

Adam was shocked into stillness. The spot on his forehead where he’d parked his lips prickled strangely, like he’d planted a flower there instead of a kiss. Adam’s stomach roiled.

Ronan was staring down at his hands, his expression was strangely unsure. Ronan Lynch. Not sure of himself. Now that was new. The light escaping through the windows lined his silhouette like sparse fires. Adam felt a fire of his own, the flames growing behind his ribcage.

“It’s weird. I spent my entire life loathing people like you and Gansey, or at least the people I thought you were until I stopped giving in to baseless judgements and stereotypes. And now everything just feels so upside down. For the first time in my life, I can’t seem to formulate a plan for something. I know I should let go, the rational part of my brain is practically begging for this to end, but I can’t seem to. And I don’t… want to.” He admitted. Getting the words out felt like the most satisfying relief. It was high time he confessed to all these tremors that had been uprooting his veins and getting tangled up inside of him.

“I’m not much for rationality, Parrish. But if it really bothers you that much, these contractual chains won’t be bounding you to me for much longer. You’re free to fuck off.”

Adam’s mouth tasted like cement all of a sudden. “I’m not trying to be a dick on purpose,” 

“Of course not.” Ronan’s tone had gone stale.

“I can’t even imagine taking the money anymore! If I could’ve just contained myself. If we hadn’t… I don’t know,” Adam sighed and pressed a finger into his eyebrow. 

“If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry Christmas.” Ronan sang, rather sardonically.

“I’m serious, Lynch.” Adam growled lowly.

“When are you not.” Ronan scoffed.

“Do you have any idea what would happen if anyone finds out that our relationship’s stepped out of the realm of the professional?” Adam asked. 

“Not really.” Ronan admitted. “All I know is that I think you deserve the money.”

When Adam just blinked, he elaborated. “I did put you through the wringer time and time again, and you worked hard for this. You sacrificed your nerd hours to babysit my sorry ass, didn’t you?”

Adam tsked. “You make it sound like a chore.” 

“Wasn’t it?” Ronan asked, eyes curious and heart attack blue. 

“Not really.” Adam admitted. “I mean, maybe it felt like that at first but…” The words kept sinking inside him, collecting dust at the pit of his stomach. Some things just felt impossible to say out loud, as if bringing the words into being would taint them somehow, leave stains in the air. “But?” Ronan urged.

“But now… It’s not so bad.” He wanted to say that he liked being around Ronan. That being around Ronan reminded his fossil of a heart that it was still beating. That being touched had always been a bad thing before this, and now he wanted it like he wanted his own tongue in his mouth, gentle and heated as summer. 

“Not so bad, huh?” Ronan smirked, running the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip.

Adam took a deep breath and closed his eyes, just as Ronan shifted closer and their shoulders brushed, making something inside Adam unwound. 

“It doesn’t matter what I do. I keep feeling guilty about it. Taking the money and consorting with you, and I know that’s not what you want to hear right now, but I have to be truthful. With you and with myself.”

Ronan just let out a sharp laugh. “It’s a slippery slope. _Consorting_ ,” he ran a finger down the curve of Adam’s neck just as he stressed on the word. Adam opened his eyes but couldn’t quite get himself to look up into Ronan’s.  

The soft coolness of his fingers felt like raindrops against his skin, rain that made him shiver and his heart accelerate in his chest. It was actually kind of preposterous how eagerly his body responded to Ronan’s touch, as if he were to melt into him like snow, or be a sunflower shifting to the command of the light.

“It’s just…” Adam started, but his breath caught and his throat got all knotted up. He swallowed and tried again. “And I’ve never…” He dropped his gaze. The words were turning to mush against his teeth. How was he supposed to explain how inexperienced he was? How they should probably push pause on this and wait, slow down until the weight of this contract had disappeared off their shoulders and the boundary wasn’t so goddamn blurry anymore.  

Ronan studied him quietly, intensely. Damnit. Why was everything about Ronan Lynch so fucking intense? It was like sidling up to a bullet train. “Cat keep catching your tongue, Parrish?”

“Several cats, actually.” Adam said, with a breathy sigh. 

“Hey,” he said, in a voice soothing as early morning tides. “Hey. Look at me.” Adam looked at him reluctantly. There was something pure and delicate in his eyes, an understanding so deep it transcended an explanation. 

“Me neither, okay?” 

Adam felt his pupils widen. “Seriously?”

“What? Do I look like fucking Casanova or something?” Ronan asked, with a curious tilt of the brow.

Adam let out the quietest of laughs. “Do you want me to answer that?”

“Listen,” Ronan’s fingers trickled down Adam’s arm and slipped slowly in between the gaps in his, their hands entwining like flower vines. “Fuck them all. We can do what we want.”

“That’s incredibly imprudent, don’t you think?”

“If ‘imprudent’ means what I just said, sure.” 

Adam sighed. “You’re missing the point.” 

Ronan scowled. “You haven’t exactly been making it very well.” 

Before Adam could open his mouth to respond, Ronan snapped. “You know what. You can talk to me when you’ve made up your mind.” He said, mildly pouting as he pushed himself back against the pillow and began to tug his headphones up over his ears again.

“No, you’re right,” Adam said, pressing his thumb into his left eye. “I haven’t been fair. Not to myself and certainly not to you. I keep pestering you about us but it’s not exactly like I’m guiltless. You may have initiated this, but I hopped on board and didn’t quite halt to really think. Even after I knew it was unadvisable. I crossed several lines. If anything, I’m to blame.” 

Ronan was quiet for what seemed like forever. Then he looked Adam square in the eye, a muscle working in his jaw, his lips drawn into a thin line, and let out an exhausted breath.

“Look, Parrish. I’m not going to blow your fucking cover. You don’t have to lose sleep over it. In fact. We can pretend it never happened, if that is what you want.” 

Adam’s heart felt like it’d been slam-dunked. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He couldn’t believe the sincerity in Ronan’s dead-eyed stare. He fumbled for the right thing to say and came up empty-handed.

“That’s not -” a breath. _“I don’t want that.”_ He rebuked, harshly, immediately.  

He couldn’t explain to Ronan how much he _didn’t_ want that. This boy had magic imbued in him, he’d seen things with his own eyes that promised impossibilities, that turned science into something wondrous again. The world was once again intriguing, and it felt so incredibly large, so incredibly uncontainable. It made him realize that there was so much more than his small little goals and his egoistic ambitions and all his overly-simplified dreams of mediocrity.

Adam never wanted to forget. He didn’t want all the moments they had together erased. He didn’t want to pretend like he hadn’t been influenced, moved, swallowed whole and spat back out wearing brand new skin in these past few weeks.

Adam looked at Ronan and thought, he contains worlds in him. 

And it was sort of a privilege to be able to map out even one of the several he encompassed, or that encompassed him.

Ronan just rolled his eyes. “What do you want then?” 

“I don’t know,” the words came out gritty and uneven. “I don’t fucking know.” 

But he did know. Somehow, against all his principles, his laws. Gravity, practicality. Against every rule of thumb, he wanted Ronan Lynch.

He wanted him like shivers down his spine and mornings spent curled up around one another and all the things that had once felt too distant to even dream of.

“You.” He finally said, obstinately.

Ronan looked incredulous. “You sure about that?”

“Ironically enough. It might be the only thing I’m sure about at the moment.” Adam confessed. 

“Fuck me then,” he said, before grinding his teeth. “I didn’t mean that literally. Well, that too but…”  He groaned. “My point is, Ponyboy. We’ll figure it out. Okay? The contract’s almost done. We can… start over or whatever. We don’t even have to do anything until then, if that helps boost that do-gooder conscience of yours at all.”

“Nah,” Adam said. “It’s already kinda too late for my conscience.”

“May it rest in peace,” Ronan smiled against Adam’s mouth as he leaned in to catch his tongue in between his teeth.

Adam’s body began to gain momentum over his mind and his nerves all felt washed over with that weightless, debilitating bliss that seemed to completely overwhelm him whenever they touched each other like this. Rendering his body useless and not his own. A puppet left to someone else’s whimsy.

Ronan’s lips tasted like warm sugar. Adam’s heart stuttered and began to beat again. The kisses grew like slow, consuming fires and the next thing he knew Ronan was turning the tables on him and shoving him gently down below his weight, pinning him to the bed with his knees wedged on either side of Adam’s hips, Ronan’s nimble fingers sliding firmly beneath his shirt, riding it all the way up to where his chest met his shoulders.

It was strange, while Ronan usually took him apart with a rough and urgent ferocity, he seemed to be taking things purposely slowly now. Adam attempted to speak, but the sound in his throat turned into a low, escaped groan when Ronan pushed his tongue deep into his mouth and clogged all thought. Adam let out a strangled breath and dug his fingers deep into the skin at the nape of Ronan's neck. 

It was all hazy slips and slides from then onwards, their mouths possessed by uncanny desires and their breaths rumbling in their throats until Ronan practically pried his mouth off of Adam’s just as the tip of Adam’s tongue snuck out for another hopeful bout. Ronan caught it in between two of his fingers, pressing down only enough to get them damp and grinned down at him. 

“Eager,” he taunted, before pushing back and releasing Adam’s tongue in favor of ducking his head to press his mouth to his jaw, and the words from there were muffled against his skin, his tone of voice hoarse enough that it almost sounded like he was speaking underwater. 

“Are you still in pain?”

Adam was so lost to the sleepy euphoria of having Ronan’s body glued to his and the way he could practically feel his skin leaping through the material of his clothes that the words didn’t make any sense at first.

Ronan’s bare skin so soft and hot against his own it almost felt edible. 

An eloquent “Huh?” was all that he could manage. 

Ronan dug a finger into his cheek and repeated the question.

“Yeah,” Adam said, words all flowy and glowy like the sea. “It’s good pain.”

“I meant literally, you sadistic bastard.”

“It’s not as painful when you’re kissing me.”

 _Because everything else just floods away._  

“Okay,” and with that, Ronan began to map a trail of slow, delirious kisses up, across and down his neck. Along the shadow-lines of his bruises, along his pulse point and throat. Beneath the satellite dish of his collar bone, leaving wet traces of evidence.

Adam let out a sharp intake of breath, his fingers now twisted in Ronan’s t-shirt as his teeth grazed his hardened nipple and he pressed a hand flat over his ribs, where he bit lightly into his flesh, right under his heart, which had practically evaporated from between his lungs. 

The air in his chest felt heavy. The room seemed to shift and grow more compact. The shadow of a tree danced along one of the walls. Up above him was moonlight.

Ronan’s mouth. His holy goddamned mouth. And his tongue, running patterns over and beneath his nipples.

Adam silently wondered if it was possible to die from such inordinate desire. Such mindless, brutal joy. This greedy animal in him.

Ronan kissed every inch of him that had ever been beaten, burned or broken. It was like being healed internally, despite the bruises that still remained like ghosts of mistakes past. Adam let out an embarrassingly audible moan as Ronan continued his set path down his torso and slipped his tongue into the dip of his navel. He sucked in his stomach instinctively as Ronan pressed another reverent kiss there before snaking his way back up Adam’s body to find his mouth again.

Adam kissed him back with grateful determination, his teeth biting a token of gratitude into Ronan’s bottom lip just as he pulled away and mimicked a string of wet circles down Ronan’s neck, who shivered against him like a wind-struck tree. Adam slipped a hand beneath Ronan’s shirt as their lips met again. It was a deluge of melt-in-mouth kisses as Adam felt the other boy up, running his hands up his torso, feeling every abdominal compartment, the dip in his chest, the curving hemispheres of his shoulders.

Adam felt all the blood in his body rush fervently downwards and it was suddenly a whole different sort of pain, the knot inside him, the rising, pulsating ache in between his thighs. Ronan pulled back a moment and maneuvered his arms up into the back of his t-shirt so that he could pull it over his head. Adam took the moment to yank his own shirt off and take in some much-needed breaths of air just as Ronan crashed into him again, pulling him up against his chest so that they were now pressed flush against one another.

Everything inside of Adam ached melodiously, resplendently. It was almost too beautiful to bear.

Was it even possible to want someone to be closer to you when you were already pressed up against every inch of them? 

Ronan’s hands travelled down his shoulders (but not before he sunk his teeth into the cold flesh there first) and then he was running his hands up and down Adam’s spine. Adam felt his gut clench when Ronan found a spot on his lower back that made shivers ignite over every flaming inch of his rattled skin. 

Adam wondered if he was being worshipped, even if he didn’t make much of an altar. 

Then Ronan was pushing him back down again and Adam could feel Ronan’s erection against the denim over his thigh as his hands made quick work of his belt and zipper. It was a little awkward as he pushed his lower-half up by balancing the rest of him on his elbows to make it simpler for Ronan to help him out of his pants but then they were out of the way and the next thing Adam knew he was naked except for the boxers trapping his painfully taut cock.

Ronan’s pupils were blown wide, his face poignant as a soft-focus frescoe in the dark drenched room as he looked questioningly down at Adam. It was a request for permission. It was consideration for Adam’s utter lack of sexual experience. It was a meaningful thing, Ronan’s thoughtfulness and his goodness. Ironically clear as day now under the blanket of the moon and the night. Adam managed a weak nod. Bravely leaving himself to the other boy’s mercy.

He should have known he wasn’t going to stand a chance the second he slipped his boxers off and Ronan angled his head to accommodate for room and slipped his head in between Adam’s thighs. One of Adam’s hands fisted in the bedsheets while he dragged his nails down Ronan’s back with his other.

Everything felt heightened. Everything felt immediate. It was like being caught in the frozen seconds before the camera-flash.

Adam stared dazedly at the dark, shadow-lit ceiling as Ronan carefully sunk his teeth into the hard ridge of Adam’s hipbone. It was the sweetest kind of pain, like getting slide burns in the summer.

The euphoria crashed over him like a high, dissolving wave, like a headrush, and another throaty groan escaped from his mouth. Feral, even to his own ears. 

Just as the stinging sensation grew a little duller, Ronan cruelly replaced his mouth with his smooth hands. Another sort of pleasure entirely.  _Torturously_ slow. Adam’s cock throbbed painfully against his belly, he wouldn’t last much longer. Ronan’s hands slipped erroneously along the sensitive skin of his inner thigh.

The touch had Adam shoving his own fingers into his open gasping mouth as his legs felt like they were trying to escape out from underneath him, in some constant state between buckling and spasming.

His body clenched in greedy anticipation, needing more. As if he could have Ronan’s hands and lips everywhere all at once.

Ronan’s fingers slid lightly in between his legs in lazy, delicate touches that felt like leaves tickling his skin. Every move keen and deliberate.

The warmth inside built hot and leisurely. He felt breakable as an eggshell beneath the press of Ronan’s hands. Adam let out a frantic breath before opening his eyes and dropping his chin on his chest to meet Ronan’s eyes, azure bitten grey in the moonlight. 

Ronan’s gaze was rapturous and pinned promptly on him as he softly blew into the gap between his thighs with a sly curve of the lips.

Adam had to wrap a hand around his own hardened cock to keep from absolutely losing control.

 _“Are you fucking kidding me?”_ he rasped, his voice dusty and alien. Was it even his voice?  

“Uh, uh, uh,” Ronan hit the back of his hand, still curved around his length. “I’m getting there.” 

“Asshole,” he muttered, reluctantly abandoning grasp.

“Shut up,” Ronan was smiling now. “You love it.” 

Before Adam could respond, Ronan was running a wet spiral of kisses up the length of his thigh before he took ahold of his cock and ran his tongue over the aching tip, lapping up a bit of heavy pre-cum that glinted along it. Everything inside him seemed to rearrange and stretch as Ronan’s expert tongue dipped in and out of his mouth, running in lingering circles over his tip just as he ducked his head to lick a line back up from the base of Adam’s cock.

The world seemed to become transparent, the only spaces in focus were the places where their bodies met. Adam's body becoming a slave to the holy white heat. He let out a guttural moan just as Ronan took him in entirely, his bones turning to mush, his head raggled with static. 

His groin throbbed frantically as Ronan sucked at his tip while his quick hand pumped the rest of his length. “God, Ronan,” the words were out like water, trickling down his chin and getting them both wet. The name seemed to weirdly fit inside his mouth in that moment. As if it took up mass and held space. Dulcet and airy. So Adam took his name again, and again. A rigorous cascade building up inside of him like starlight.

He felt full and yet he was starved. He felt ablaze with a thousand names for this chemical reaction he was having that he wouldn’t remember in the morning. He scratched at Ronan’s scalp with blunt fingernails, his heart thrummed a percussion of desires, the pleasure riding the waves inside him seemed to grow limbs and begin to dance. Ronan’s pace increased and Adam was left speechless, frenzied. The pleasure was building embarrassingly rapidly, the wicked delight of it almost unbearable.

When Ronan pulled him out of his mouth and crawled back up his shivering body, Adam instinctively wrapped his legs around Ronan’s waist and swallowed him in a drowning kiss that made his brain melt and his stomach hurt. As their tongues warred for dominance, Ronan’s chest shuddered beneath his trembling hands.

“Come here,” Adam demanded into the wet hotness of Ronan’s mouth as they locked themselves into one another like whirling vines.

Adam sighed against his face, his arousal like a crescendo, furling higher as he reached over Ronan’s back to run his arms down the shifting edges of his shoulder blades and the sharp ridge of his spine.

Ronan rolled his hips down hard, grinding them so that the bulge in his pants aligned against Adam’s cock. Adam’s chest burned, his groin twitched, his body felt like a hot spring. It was scraping grunts and too-eager mouths and souls colliding.

“I’m close,” Adam hissed against Ronan’s damp neck. “Ronan, I’m so close!”

Ronan pulled himself out of Adam’s arms to slip off his own clothes until he was out of his sweats and underwear. Adam gaped as Ronan pulled out his cock. All of his thoughts whirling to a stop. His heart was a dynamite blasting his ribs to smithereens. His brain registered that this was the first time that he’d seen Ronan’s cock. That this was the first time that he’d seen _anybody’s_ cock.

He couldn’t help it. He stared.

Ronan’s cock was thick and circumcised and surrounded by beautiful dark hair. Adam’s eyes were glued to it like looking away might mean that this was all a dream.

Ronan merely smirked. “My eyes are up here, knucklehead,” then he leaned close enough that Adam had to forcibly look away and yanked Adam into a kiss that might’ve pulled an unsteady gasp of dizzying pleasure from his lungs before wrapping his hands around both of their cocks and pulling them off together.

Adam felt Ronan’s thighs quivering against his sides and his bones slid away from him. The world stuttered and galloped and then stilled again. Ronan dipped down and took Adam’s dick in between his lips just as it strained painfully and he came viciously, wondrously. Directly into Ronan’s mouth. A sharp cry was torn out of him, a sharp cry in the shape of Ronan’s name. 

Everything felt drunk and fizzy, as if they were suddenly underwater. His skin felt loose like it might slide off, his chest rose and fell like a calamity, his kneecaps shattered. Even his heart was pounding an apocalyptic rhythm. Ronan swallowed before bringing himself back up and stroking himself harshly once, twice before coming right onto Adam’s bare stomach, all warm and sticky.

Adam forced himself to keep his eyes open as he rode off the aftershocks, even as they prickled and his heavy lashes attempted to slide. His eyes remained pinned to Ronan’s equally strained ones. A single tear roiled down his cheek and everything shrunk once more. Ronan frowned ever-so-slightly and brushed it away with his thumb.

Adam's head was a phosphorescent sea and his arms were limp to his sides while he attempted to catch his breath. As his body finally snapped like a rubber band let loose and the tension slowly fled from inside him, he ran his hands over Ronan’s gorgeous face and pulled him into him so that their noses brushed.  
  
“Kiss me,” Adam whispered, breathlessly. “Kiss me.”

Ronan’s mouth dove towards his lips, Adam’s slid open like an offering. They traded breathless kisses for awhile before Adam pulled back and ran a slow finger down the side of Ronan’s face, his skin warm with the evidence of his desire. “I want to…” when he couldn’t find a way to finish that sentence without sounding like an absolute idiot and Ronan quirked a brow, Adam lifted his hips and crawled carefully over him so that Ronan was pinned firmly beneath him.

The other boy shivered as Adam dug his nose into the ridge of his collarbone, and he managed to pull the softest noise of pleasure from him when he took his skin between his teeth before pulling back to suck a quiet indentation into him. Adam had never given anyone a love bite before, but he’d paid close attention to the way Ronan’s mouth had moved, how he’d been careful not to bite too hard, the way his mouth flirted with his skin and knew just how to make it sting in the most deliriously sluggish of ways. 

Adam didn’t think he was half as skilled, but he wanted to make Ronan feel good.

When he pulled away to slide his hands down Ronan’s arms and across the sculptured lines of his chest, Ronan pulled his face back up and held him there between his hands, his gaze wide and a bit dazed.

“You don’t have to feel like you’re obligated or some shit. Okay?”

“I don’t feel obligated.”

“You sure?”

“I _want_ to.” 

Ronan’s expression shifted subtly, something rapturous blooming across his features, almost deceiving in the moon-tinted light. His skin looked like blue marble. Adam didn’t know what he was doing. His chest was a warzone, his stomach felt like it would split in half. His inexperience rang inside his head like an uncomfortable drum.

He’d never truly gotten the chance to sit down and think about something as superficial as sex, it had sounded to him like a cruel joke back when mere human contact was almost too much to bear on some days. He’d sit too close to somebody, hear their breath, and suddenly he could smell the alcohol in the air and his eyes would snap shut like a prayer. He’d accidentally brush up against someone in the school hallway and the next thing he knew his father’s fists were trapping his windpipe.

There had been days when his curiosity had made him sneak adult magazines into his room and he’d learned enough about how it all worked in sex ed classes at school, but the truth still remained that he’d never been this intimate with another person before. Maybe he wasn’t ready for full blown sex just yet, but watching Ronan now, spread out beneath him wrapped in all that glistening skin and hardened muscle, all Adam wanted to do was suck him off. 

So he dropped snaking and sucking kisses across the length of Ronan’s torso, ran wet circles over his stiffened nipples and licked a steady wet trail down his stomach as Ronan exhaled shakily.

Adam looked up at Ronan, whose breath hitched when he felt along the prominent V of his hips and brushed against the coarse hair leading down between his legs.

Adam met his eyes. “I haven’t ever done this before.”

“And you don’t have to start now. Unless you want to.” 

“Everytime you say that I just want to suck you off even more.” 

Ronan broke into a smug smirk. “We’re going to have to work on your dirty talk,” but he couldn’t hide the pink flush that swept his cheeks.

“Show me,” Adam insisted, and Ronan nodded, lifting his chin so that he could take Adam’s hand in his own. He led it in between his thighs to wrap Adam’s fingers around the base of his cock. “Just breathe. Don’t get experimental or use your teeth. Take it at your own pace.”

Adam nodded and licked his lips just as Ronan dropped his head back against the pillow and knotted his fingers in Adam’s hair. Adam pressed a lingering kiss against his leaking tip and Ronan’s grip in his hair tightened.

This was encouraging enough that he tightened his grip before wrapping his mouth around it. It was a large, clumsy weight in his mouth at first and Adam was afraid his teeth would graze the sensitive skin around it. The taste of it was strong and almost bitter, but he was stubborn enough to see this through that he didn’t take him out of his mouth.

Ronan was watching him with an expression that he could only describe as a mixture of concern and nerves, but Adam just kept his gaze rapt on Ronan’s face, his long, beautiful eyelashes, his bruised lips, the spot on his neck that had begun to turn a dull purple.

For the first time in his life, Adam had touched something, and instead of diminishing it or leaving it completely unfazed, he’d left a prominent mark on it.  

The thought was motivation enough as he closed his eyes and began to suck at the tip, cautiously slow at first and then harder. It was slightly awkward for quite a few moments, but then he got the hang of it.

Carefully, Adam opened his eyes and took a couple more inches into his mouth. Ronan sighed loudly in response, his fingers twisting harder into his hair. Adam hummed against his cock appreciatively which in turn made Ronan’s thighs clench under him. He let out a low hiss and one of his hands released Adam’s scalp to scratch down his upper back. 

As Adam gained confidence, one of his hands slipped in between his own hips where he quelled his own ache before he slid the same hand up over Ronan’s waistline, who moaned lowly as Adam found just the right balance in between stroking and sucking. Ronan wasn’t as loud as Adam was, but his grip on Adam was tight as life, his breaths came in short, uneven bouts, his stomach heaved beneath the press of Adam’s hand and when he said his name, everything inside Adam curled and shrunk and grew all at the same time.   

 _“Adam,”_ Ronan rasped. 

Adam felt his heart shatter in his chest. He’d never had his heart broken out of happiness before.

His name on his lips stirred the fire already sloshing around inside him. He hummed against Ronan’s cock again and delighted in the way it made Ronan helplessly growl.

Ronan brought his upper body forward the closer he came to orgasm and held Adam’s head in his arms. His rapid and pleasure-wrecked gasps made Adam’s spine contort and chills race up and down the length of his skin. Adam finally took him in almost completely, stroking harder and faster, the pace almost tiring. His jaw hurt but it was worth it to feel the swell of his cock against his tongue before he finally came warmly into Adam’s mouth. Ronan’s entire body seemed to shudder as if he’d been swept by a frigid breeze, his sigh of pleasure stunted to a sucked in breath. Adam swallowed despite a second’s urge to gag until Ronan let out an exhausted groan and pulled his now relaxed body back so that Adam could release him and wipe any stray drops of their stint off his chin.

Adam took a deep breath, his mouth feeling strangely empty now, Ronan’s taste still clinging to his throat and ringing hot against his teeth.

Ronan slumped back against the spine of the ransacked bed, his breaths still sharp and uneven, his eyes starry and his mouth hanging slightly open.

Adam watched him, so effortlessly beautiful against the pale sheets, body wrung like an Ireland field, his expression ever-so drunk and drizzling.

Adam thought, _I did this. I did this to him_. _I made him shiver and say my name._

He thought, _I'm in love with him._

He thought, _what the hell did I just think?_  
  
“Jesus, Joseph and Mary,” Ronan managed, after a minute of breathless silence. “You’re shitting me if that was your first time doing this.”

Adam’s triumph seemed to reverberate through his veins and a lazy, tired smile crept up his face.

Ronan returned the smile before trying to get up, being unsuccessful and collapsing right back against the bed. “I think I’m gonna need another minute to remind my limbs how to work.”

Adam nodded, the smile on his face practically immovable at this point as he carefully crawled out of bed to pick up the clothes they’d left tossed across the room and change into something comfortable enough to sleep in. Adam stared at himself in the mirror when he got to the bathroom. He almost couldn’t recognize the dull rings beneath his eyes, the scars painted so vividly on his face, darker even against his pallid skin, his sandy hair and gaunt cheekbones.

His eyes were blown large and bluer than ever, but for once, he didn’t think he saw his father in them. Ronan’s eyes were blue too. Granted, they were bluer than Adam’s and strangely hypnotic. 

But Adam’s hereditary shade of blue had always reminded him of cold northern winters and unforgiving ice. _Shh. Not now_. His head was still abuzz and alight with the sweet, blissful emptiness that came after a surge of euphoria.

He closed his eyes and he could still picture Ronan, flush as a hungry flood against him.

Adam let out a quiet, satisfied sigh; cleaned himself up and splashed some water on his face before changing into a soft cotton t-shirt and a pair of grey pajamas. 

When he returned, Ronan was dressed too, in a pair of sweatpants and one of Adam’s faded old t-shirts. His cross still glinted against the centre of his neck like an omen.

It was strange enough seeing him devoid of his staple muscle tee, but to see him wearing Adam’s t-shirt… It was actually a little unfair how good it looked on him. Ronan was at least a size or two bigger than Adam, so the t-shirt hugged him very fittingly. Not that Adam was complaining.

“You don’t mind, do you?”

Adam made a small pout. “I think you actually wear it better than me.” 

Ronan let out a sharp laugh as Adam crawled back into bed, his entire body felt like it’d been dipped in acid. His old bruises stung, new ones bloomed where Ronan had marked him with his mouth and sleep would be the only medicine. 

“Here,” Ronan said, as if on cue, handing him a glass of water and a painkiller he must’ve brought back with him when Adam was still in the bathroom.

“Thank you,” Adam replied, downing it in three quick gulps and leaning over Ronan to set the glass back down.

Adam groaned softly as he maneuvered himself into bed, but his muscles twisted in pain. He cursed under his breath, hating how he felt like a prisoner in his own bones, hating that he’d let that asshole derail him like this. Being stripped of his independence, having to rely on other people to even be able to move was a scarier prospect than death to Adam.

“Easy,” Ronan said, sitting up and leaning forward to help pull the covers over Adam’s shoulders and tuck him in. “I’ve got you,” he then said, running a gentle hand through his hair and pressing a short kiss to his temple. Adam was frankly too spent to protest being treated like a patient or a liability despite the ill thoughts. Plus, the look in Ronan’s eyes didn’t make it seem like this bothered him at all. 

 _There’s a difference,_ a voice in his head reminded. _Between taking care of someone because you feel like you have to and taking care of someone simply because you care._

Adam remembered the concern alight in Ronan’s eyes when he’d first seen what Kavinsky had done to him, the protective promise of a kiss and the immovable anger that had flared along his features. 

He couldn’t help but watch as Ronan turned on his side so that they were face to face against their pillows with only a few inches of space to spare in between. Drink him in with the night. 

For once, the world and all of his problems in it seemed idealistically far away and nothing seemed to matter except for this calm sea stirring in between them. 

Ronan’s lashes fluttered. “Go to sleep, you idiot.” 

“Not yet.” Adam said. 

“Why are you smiling at me like that?” 

“I don’t know,” Adam replied, earnestly, his lips quirking further. “I can’t seem to help it.” 

Ronan rolled his eyes, but then he was smiling too. “Hey,” he said, pressing his knee against Adam’s. “Yeah?”

“I wanted to say thank you.” 

“Huh?” Adam asked. Drowsiness settled in, his vision beginning to blur against the prickling embroidery of sleep. “For what?” he managed, despite it.

“Just thought I never really thanked you for everything that you’ve done for me.”

“I think,” Adam muttered, against the warm bedsheets. “I think I should say thank you, too.”

“Is that sarcasm I sense, Parrish?”

“No, I’m serious. Meeting you changed my life.”

“That’s dramatic.” Ronan scoffed. “Been reading Shakespeare lately?”

“Maybe,” Adam said, his eyelids heavily closing. “But it’s the truth.”

Ronan was quiet for a beat, two. 

“I think I felt something tonight I haven’t felt in a long time.” He then admitted. 

“Mm,” Adam hummed, sleepily. “And what’s that?”  
  
He didn’t get to really hear Ronan’s answer as his thoughts no longer made any sound. He fell asleep to Ronan’s paper-light fingers tracing his eyebrows, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the outer ridge of his broken ear...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- comments are always appreciated!! as we near the last couple chapters, please leave me some!! it means the world! :)  
> \- thank you so much for reading!!! <33


	22. A Quiet Darkness

_"There is no one to save us because there's no need to be saved. I've hurt you. I've loved you. I've mowed the front yard." - Matthew Dickman_

* * *

It came out of nowhere, gripped him like a hand, cut the chords of blurry sleep, evoked torpedoes beneath the base of his blinkering ribs. Adam’s eyes flew open and the darkness around him seemed to melt & take the shape of his father’s ever-encompassing shadow. It was like something had sucked all the oxygen out of the room. It was like being buried alive.

He croaked through lips that had turned into caves devoid of echoes and clenched at the headboard in a flimsy attempt to straighten his spine. His right hand pressed into his chest, which flamed an inferno, his stomach twisted and unknotted itself like a snake in seasoning.

A body that wasn’t really there sat down against his own, squelching him entirely. Invisible fists clawed for his windpipe; suddenly aching for air.

A creeping sense of claustrophobia and disorientation came next. The world tipped sideways, reality colliding with his dreams, he could feel his heartbeat in his mouth.

If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve figured what was happening to him was a heart attack.

Next to him, Ronan stirred at Adam’s sudden, flailing movements. No, no, no. The last thing he wanted was to wake Ronan up. The last thing he wanted was for Ronan to _see_. See him like this.

Weak and frail and pathetic and helpless. Adam groped for his own mouth, so that he could stifle the sounds he was managing to produce, muffle the wheezing. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and attempted to calm himself.

Counting, perhaps. Backwards from ten.

Or… Yes.

That would do.

That would have to do.

10... 9… 8…  
  
He was going to fucking die.

He felt like he’d been shot right in the heart. His throat folded inwards, like a stylized paper napkin. Everything stung. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t -

Instantly, he felt warm hands holding his face together and then they were gently pressing at his shoulder blades, reeling him upwards. Adam’s face was brought into the crook of Ronan’s neck.

“Jesus, Adam. _Breathe_.”

Adam had expected Ronan to sound angry, frantic, discombobulated.

Instead, he sounded calm. Composed, even.

His voice came sharp and steady, like a surgical cut. It seemed to reverberate through Adam’s veins. He opened his eyes as Ronan pulled him away from him so that they could lock gazes.

 _I’m trying,_ he attempted to say, with his eyes.

“Hey, hey,” Ronan continued, surging forward to take Adam’s frozen hands. Adam’s stomach was revolting, he couldn’t feel anything… or perhaps… Perhaps this was a result of feeling too much. “Look at me, Adam. Meet my eyes.”

Adam choked on his own saliva and barked out a strangled noise before he could get his lungs to obey, an obnoxious hiccup followed.

Adam’s hands clawed for Ronan’s wrists and pressed them against his neck. He lifted his chin with strain and stared into dazzling blue.

“I’m going to take one of your hands now. Just don’t resist, okay? Follow my lead. Can you do that for me?” Ronan was at his gentlest and all Adam could do was gape like a cow and nod slowly.

Ronan nodded back and gently guided Adam’s hand from his neck to Ronan’s chest where he pressed it against his own heart with his hand still cupping his.

Adam could feel it fluttering there steadily, unlike his, a rapid alarm going off.

He pulled Adam into him so that his chin was inches from Ronan’s shoulder and whispered into his good ear. “You’re going to be okay,” he said. “Just breathe with me.”

Ronan then took a deep breath and let it out. Adam’s breaths came out in half-stuttering sobs, like fishes flopping vehemently for life. He let out another gnarled gag.

Ronan’s jaw clenched, his cheekbones were steel. He hissed a curse between pursed lips. “For fuck’s sake, Adam. You can do this. Just breathe. Come _on_.”

Ronan took another breath. Adam felt his ribs swell and contract beneath his shirt and attempted to emulate the action. They did it again, and then again. Just breathing in tandem until Adam’s heartbeat fell in step with Ronan’s, until the fire in his lungs died out.

Slowly, the feeling returned to his skin. Ronan dropped their hands and everything suddenly returned to focus. Something in between gratitude, mortification and relief flooded a whirlpool inside of him.

It was almost abandoning, to lose the feeling of Ronan’s heart beating underneath his palm. Soft and warm as shelter, as a promise, as rhythm in this world tuned like an over-winded guitar string.

Ronan pressed two fingers at the small of Adam’s back and a shiver shot right up to the nape of his neck, he shuddered involuntarily and just as he leaned in to press his cheek over Ronan’s to reassure him, the other boy pushed himself away, skirting backwards on his elbows.

It was like he was suddenly making a conscious effort not to touch him. Adam dropped his head, which felt light as snow sliding off a roof. “I’m so incredibly sorry.” When Ronan said nothing, Adam continued. “I didn’t think… It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I thought they’d stopped for good. It’s been so long since…”

“Don’t be thick,” Ronan growled. “And for the love of all things holy don’t be fucking sorry.”

“Huh?”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “It’s not like you can schedule these things, Parrish.”

Adam nodded, obligingly. “It just sneaks up on you, you know?”

Ronan sighed agreement. His expression was calm and calculating, he looked like a critic in speculation. His features were spread taut, his arms crossed at his chest.

Adam had once again managed to sprawl the bed sheets everywhere. The moon-stained, elusive light sliding in from the windows told him little about what time it was in the outside world. It was going to be a big day tomorrow, and Adam silently hoped they’d be stuck in the web of night for a little while longer.

“What do you need?” Ronan asked, pointedly.

“Nothing,” Adam said quietly.

“I’m getting you something to drink.” Ronan concurred, before getting off the bed and disappearing out the room. Adam fell back onto the bed and stared up at the rotating ceiling fan for a moment. He hated himself so much when he got like this. He’d mostly learnt to let the unproductive self-loathing go when he’d left that nightmare town behind, but sometimes, nightmares had teeth and those teeth left indelible dents.

He was in a much better place mentally and physically, than he had been back when these panic attacks had been a regular occurrence, which was why he couldn’t quite decide what had triggered it. It could perhaps, be stress over the events that were about to enfold tomorrow.

Perhaps nothing had triggered it.

People prone to panic attacks sometimes received them like the aftershocks of an earthquake, scattered and untimely. Still he couldn’t help but feel like he’d caused a disruption in their relationship, turned Ronan off somehow. _He_ was the one who was supposed to have it all together. Instead he did nothing except probably scare the shit out of Ronan.  
  
Just because he looked like he knew what was going on didn’t necessarily mean anything since Ronan was so very adept at veiling his true emotions when need be. Every feeling that ever trapped him neatly tucked away; seemingly at a curtain’s drop.

Adam heard footsteps incline up the hall and a moment later, Ronan returned. He handed him an energy drink and sat down by his side, still keeping his distance as if touching him might set the bomb off again.

“I bet you’re asking yourself what the hell that was.” Adam said quietly, as he took a sip of the drink and allowed the cool liquid to slide like salve down the dry trajectory of his throat.

“I know what it was.”

A jolt up his spine.

“How?”

“Because I used to get them too. After my dad died. The goddamn panic attacks. They hit like a bitch. Just without a warning.” Ronan explained, his eyebrows narrowed in thought or reverie.

When Adam couldn’t find it in himself to respond, he continued. “I’d wake up some nights, forgetting what had transpired. When the memory would return, it’d paralyze me.”

“I should’ve controlled it,” Adam said then, lamely.

Ronan stared. “You’re smarter than that, Parrish. That’s like asking to control a fucking tsunami.”

Adam sighed and finished the rest of the drink in a few swift gulps before setting it down and turning to face Ronan, who was still purposely recoiled from him. It wasn’t that he was being unsubtle about it, it was just that Adam had come to learn Ronan and his mannerisms, study him like a book due for exam.

It was in the way he usually allowed their thighs and elbows to brush when they sat by each other. It was in the way he now kept his gaze trained on the shadowy wall in front of them and his hands pressed in between his knees.

“If you’re so cool about it, then why can’t you even look at me?” Adam demanded.

Ronan’s eyes swivelled to him in a sharp instant. “God, Adam. You’re dense sometimes.”

“What?” he knew he probably sounded like a whiny five-year-old, he couldn’t quite find it in himself to care. Ronan’s expression was angry and conflicted. Or maybe it wasn’t angry at all.  
  
Sometimes, with Ronan, it was hard to separate anger from any other generic emotion because he felt everything so very intensely that any expression on his face could be confused for anger.

“With your colorful history… I just thought what if… If touch is a trigger for you.” Ronan stuttered. “I mean maybe we should be more careful. Slow things down. I don’t know if I -”

“Stop talking.” Adam cut him off.  

When the other boy looked at him, Adam broke into the surest smile and skimmed over Ronan’s hip, fingers running against the soft material of his sweatpants before putting his hand over Ronan’s and lacing their fingers together. “And you say _I’m_ the dense one,” he said, rolling his eyes. When Ronan just frowned, he continued.

“Let me show you something,” he said, raising their entwined hands and pressing them now, to his own chest. Ronan seemed to tense up at the contact. “Feel my heart,” Adam insisted. It was beating the steadiest pitter-patter rhythm until Ronan’s skin met Adam’s and then they could both feel the slight yet palpable escalation in pace through the material of his t-shirt. He’d never known that somebody’s mere proximity could illicit such a visceral response and it sent a thrilling jolt through him.

Ronan stared unerringly into Adam’s eyes, their hands still pressed to his heartbeat, to his vulnerability.

“You don’t make it worse, Ronan.” He explained. “You _help_.”

“Adam, I -”

“Shh, no. My turn to talk. I can tell the difference. I’m not afraid anymore. I’m so fucking tired of being afraid that at this point, I’m a little immune to fear. You get that, right? Hardly anything scares you anymore. Except maybe this. What we have. Look, what I’m trying to say is. I’m not my abuse and you’re not your grief. We can just be… Us.”

“ _Adam_ ,” Ronan’s pupils looked wider than moons, it was almost as if he was holding his breath, the muscles beneath his jaw tensing up.

“I know that you feel like the world’s done you wrong. Tackling unfairness after unfairness. As if you somehow think you’re breaking everyone that gets close to you, but I’m not going anywhere, okay? Not even after the contract’s void. The effect you think you have on people. It’s imaginary, and even if it’s not. It doesn’t work on me. So I’ll say it one last time, Ronan Lynch. You’re a good person and you better start believing it.”

“I saw the fracture lines on you the minute I met you.” Ronan said, out of the blue.  
  
Adam sighed as he dropped their hands. “Is it that obvious?”

“That you’re a hot fucking mess? Fuck yeah.”

When Adam frowned, Ronan smiled slightly and nudged his shoulder with his own. “You don’t always have to have your shit together, man. Perfection is animatronic, you’re supposed to be human.”  
  
Adam didn’t realize how much he needed to hear those words until he felt something behind his ribs unfasten. He remembered how once, Blue had mentioned how she thought that he had a bit of a complex. _If you’re always being strong for everyone, who’s being strong for you?_

He’d replied that he didn’t need anyone to be strong for him because he had himself, but maybe, somewhere down the line and without even realizing it, he’d let himself down.

Suddenly, the air between them seemed to stir and Adam leaned ever-so slightly into Ronan’s face, his gaze paused in question. Ronan replied with his mouth, crushing their lips together with a fierce and newfound urgency. Slow as a burning fire. Deep and warm and promising. For the first time, the slate between them felt licked clean, as if there was nothing to hold back.

Everything inside Adam emptied and crumbled and felt rebuilt in the span of a single breath. All he could think about was the stunning warmth of tongues and how smoothe Ronan’s skin was, how right it felt to feel his jaw tense beneath the press of his palms, the way his stomach lurched with a want that wasn’t even describable. It was unreal how ridiculously _good_ it all felt.

Ronan Lynch had stunningly gone from an obligation to a problem to a want to a habit. And whatever was stirring in Adam’s chest now seemed to spell _need_.

Just as Adam ran a hand over Ronan’s head, which was beginning to bristle with prickly strands of hair, he gave Adam’s lip a final tug before backing out of the kiss. His breath washed over Adam’s lip as he spoke.

“What if I fuck up tomorrow?”

“ _We_ won’t.” Adam replied.

Ronan’s mouth clenched. “How can you be so sure?”

Adam shrugged and ran a hand through his own hair. He was honestly wary about the plan himself, but doubting it now was only going to cause him to stress and overthink and there was no point crying over spilt milk. Knowing Ronan’s stubborn nature, things were going to come to a head. One way or another. He didn’t think out loud.

“Call it an intuition? I just am.”

“Intuitions are imaginary.”

“You’re imaginary,” Adam retorted, using Ronan’s own trick, which made him smile curiously, but then the smile dropped again, to be replaced with an unsure frown. “I don’t want you to get in trouble because you were leaping into the fire after me.”

Adam raised a brow. “What happened to our deal?”

“Do you want the honest version?”

“Always.”

“I didn’t care what happened then.”

“And you care now?”

“About you,” he said, softly. “I’m not going anywhere, Adam. I’ll get along like I always do. Sometimes I just wing it and life somehow cuts me a break. But you have so much at stake. You have real goals, real ambitions, and you have the potential to achieve them. I don’t wanna fuck this up for you. I don’t wanna be the reason you lose everything… Everything that you’ve worked for. I know how important it is for you to succeed but I don’t think you’ll get very far with me holding you back.”

Adam stared at Ronan for a moment, his heart skipping a beat.

“Even you,” he started. “Destructive as you may be, couldn’t keep me from achieving the things that I want, Lynch.” He grinned, but when Ronan’s gaze remained stale, Adam sighed and pulled his hands into his lap before sliding his fingers in the gaps between Ronan’s. Once again, it made him feel strangely complete and something hot frothed inside of him, sunspill behind the lungs.

He didn’t know when he’d let himself fall this far. He didn’t know when he’d let himself get this close. It’d just happened. Like being pushed into a lake. Like a dream, the beginning of which he could never remember. It was devastating now, to see that expression on Ronan’s face and the blinkering self-doubt behind his eyes. It was probably the most broken look he’d ever seen, something on par with the one he himself used to wear on nights his father beat the shit out of him. Except in a way, maybe this was worse.

Adam had always been unsure of himself because people had _made_ him question his worth. Someone else had planted the suggestion of self-hatred in his head and it had stuck and grown to the size of a bloody beanstalk, but in Ronan’s case, it seemed like something self-weaved. He didn’t believe in himself, even when others around him blindly did. So in a way, Adam thought that was even sadder than his own predicament.

“Stop that.” He chided.

“What?” Ronan asked.

“Saying things like that about yourself.”

“It’s the truth, Adam.”

“Maybe your version. Not mine.”

“So there are multiple truths now?”

“Certainly,” Adam agreed. “The meaning of truth can be distorted by human perception.”

“Okay, Sigmund Freaking Freud. What’s your version then?”

Adam was quiet a moment. He wasn’t entirely sure and that obscurity was the version of the truth he was prescribing to. He didn’t know anymore. He didn’t know anything except for the fact that Ronan had somehow become this integral presence in his life.

One of the first people to look at him and see something worth loving.

“Here’s what I know. You think I’m worth loving? I think you’re worth saving.”

“Drop a line like that again and I may be forced to marry you.” Ronan joked.

“Maybe we should start with dinner and a movie first.”

Ronan’s expression actually froze. “Is that what we’re doing? _Dating?_ Should I bust out the flowers and the fucking chocolate? Do you wanna picnic under the stars next?”

“If you want. I mean… We don’t have to define it as anything. Not if you don’t want to.”  
  
“What happened to all your domineering speeches about precaution?”

“Yeah. I think it’s a little too late for precautions. I guess if we’re burning. We’ll burn together.”

Ronan’s eyes were alight. “Why does that sound so incredibly hot the way you say it?”

Before Adam could answer, Ronan was pushing him down against the bed and kissing him speechless. As his eyes finally closed, all Adam could think about was that he didn’t even care about the future if the present could just continue to be this. Him wanting to become something primal and intangible beneath the fatal brush of Ronan’s mouth. Something disparate and thirsty. Just kisses and lips and stubble forever, or at least a little slice of forever.

Adam thought that little slice he was getting to chew would do no matter what happened tomorrow.

* * *

Adam woke up to the weight of someone’s body pressed against his chest, and momentarily, his brain short-circuited, his mind telling him that he was surely a goner this time, his vision fogging up.

The momentary panic died as soon as it had arisen and his gaze caught on the top of Ronan’s head, his skin prickling as he felt his warm, short breaths against his collarbone. Ronan’s face was practically tucked into the curve of Adam’s neck, his slender arms wrapped around his torso.

Adam sighed softly and stared up at the ceiling, crowded with strips of morning light. Today was it. Today they would attempt to coerce a killer into hiding. Tonight their contract would cease to be valid. He was going to end up feeling ever so free and ever so empty - and that was if something didn’t go horribly wrong.

Adam’s gaze flittered to the digital clock on the nightstand by the bed. It was about 9.45 AM. He bit his bottom lip and ran faint fingers up and over the length of Ronan’s inked spine. His lashes seemed to flutter heavily as he blinked in his sleep. Adam brought one of his fingers to Ronan’s face and attempted to smooth the slight crease over his eyelid.

In the drawer beyond the bed rested the proof of a dozen filthy fictional crimes. Everything that they needed to carry out the blackmail. But what if Greenmantle pulled a gun? What if he refused to play ball? His mind was alight with warped images of catastrophes spurned from every possible wrong move they might make.

He was still sore as hell from his fight with Kavinsky and wasn’t really looking forward to getting the shit beaten out of him again anytime soon.

So how could he assure Ronan, or assure himself even, that this would all go according to plan?

No, no. There was no room for doubt. Not at this point. Backing out now after everything just felt cowardly and anti-climactic. He had to see this through. He had to ascertain their win and Greenmantle’s loss. It was so much more than just a revenge-fuelled risk. It was the only way he could release Ronan from the prison of his own sabotaging thoughts.

It wouldn’t solve everything, Adam knew better than anyone that vengeance was never the answer, but maybe once Ronan realized that destroying Greenmantle wouldn’t destroy that ache in his gut, he’d also come to realize that the only way to truly heal was to finally let go and move on.

He would give up the charade, having fulfilled his angsty and illogical desires and hopefully be able to breathe a little lighter.

This would, perhaps, make him see that he was his own cure.

Right now, he was stubborn and unwilling to adhere to reason, but if he were to succeed and still be unable to fill that hole inside of him, he’d see that this was never going to be the way and maybe then, Adam could talk him into what he really needed to do: forgive himself and the world. Take this as a lesson, as another chance. It was a ridiculous, roundabout way to just prove a point, but they were running out of both options and time.

Adam looked down at Ronan again, whose breathing was getting ragged. Adam frowned and ran his thumb over the side of Ronan’s jaw. “Hey,” he murmured quietly, in hopes to steady him, but the next thing Adam knew Ronan’s eyes flew wide open. Blood trickled down his face, something had evidently slashed his cheek wide open. Just as Adam attempted to sit up straighter, Ronan tore himself off of Adam and stumbled backwards in order to get away from him, his spine colliding with the wall.

“Jesus,” Adam said. “You’re bleeding.”

“God damnit!” Ronan cursed, digging his fingers into his wet cheek.

“Don’t do that,” Adam said quietly, even as his heart skipped several beats. “It’ll only make it bleed more and worsen the wound.”

Ronan was still backed up into the wall, his gaze somehow furious and disoriented at the same time.

“Sometimes I think I forget dreams work differently with you than the rest of the world.” Adam mumbled.

“Shit, shit, shit. I’m such a fucking idiot,” Ronan snapped, his gaze sharpening as he met Adam’s wary stare. “This is why I shouldn’t be letting myself fall asleep around you.”

Adam blinked. “What?”

Ronan looked at Adam as if it were obvious. “I can’t predict my dreams. I don’t want you to get hurt because a night terror followed me out into the real world and attempted to rip my face off.”

“I won’t get hurt,” Adam said.

Ronan narrowed his eyes. “Oh, no. Of course you won’t. You’ll just psychoanalyze them into retreating. Tell me, does this stupidity come naturally to you or are you actually being deliberate?”

“I won’t get hurt because you won’t let me get hurt.”

“Are you not _seeing_ this?” Ronan barked, gesturing at his own shredded cheek. “I can’t even keep  _myself_  from getting hurt! It’s not something I can control!”

“Sure it is,” Adam argued. “You just don’t know how to yet.”

Ronan shook his head as if Adam were hopeless.

Adam merely shrugged. “Come here,” he insisted. “Let me take a look at your face.”

Ronan just closed his eyes and let out an exhausted breath, the sharp ridges of his face piercing in the light. “This was a bad idea from the start.”

It was Adam’s turn to frown incredulously. “Are you talking about me?”

“Yes. You were like the mothership of bad ideas. Don’t you see? I’m a mess, Parrish. And I’m going to end up getting you killed.”

“When are you gonna stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself?” Adam challenged, white hot anger furling around his ribs. “Almost all my life, Ronan. I tried to blame the world for my problems. I thought I would never live up to my full potential because of barriers like my father whose abuse made me into something smaller and less worthwhile, like that town that seemed far too confining to cater to me.

When I finally wormed my way out, the world rearranged itself and suddenly, or for the first time, I thought I stood a chance, that this was life levelling the playing field. I was wrong. With leaving came new challenges, there were days I thought I was nothing and that I never should’ve left that small town because that’s the place I was inevitably connected to and maybe I didn’t have what it takes.” Adam ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“But I’d decided early on that I wouldn’t allow myself to give up because I was never going back. You know, technically, I was kicked out of my place. I couldn’t face him after I’d pressed charges on him. I knew he had connections, lawyers, people who would make sure he didn’t end up in prison. I knew he would try and get back at me. Maybe make good on his promise and finally kill me. I knew I had to go. That it was a now or never sort of situation,” Adam swallowed thickly before continuing.

“You’ve been handed a few shitty decks, I get that, but it doesn’t have to be a shitty life forever. And I mean… This pain is just a consequence of living. You’ve suffered, so have I. You learn from your suffering and you get back up. Believe it or not, call it cliche even, but there are people who do have it worse than you and I, but you don’t see them whining about it every chance that they get.” He continued.

“There are people far more content with far less than what we have.”

Ronan’s expression was bleak but he said nothing so Adam merely shook his head and carried on. “You have to let go of this bullshit, man. Let me be here while I’m here. Let your brothers. Let Gansey. You spend so much time grieving the loss of people that have left you, you forget to consider the people who are _still_ _here_.”  

When Ronan just continued to stand there quietly, Adam stood up and took the liberty to cross this invisible threshold in between them himself. Ronan was discombobulating when he was like this, his countenance as malevolent as it was empty. He was visibly volatile, something keen to detonante.

It was just too bad that Adam wasn’t going to let him. Not after all that they’d been through. The truth was, Adam had recognized something of himself in Ronan. And if Adam could come out the other end after what life had put him through, then so could he, so could anyone. If Ronan wasn’t going to redeem himself and reclaim his life, everything Adam had been telling himself since he’d begun forging this path would’ve been a lie and all of this just a haphazardly convenient coincidence.

Ronan pushed off the wall, but his mouth was a dull, pressed line. As if he was refraining from baring teeth. Adam pressed a cold hand to Ronan’s strained neck. He didn’t shirk out of his touch but he didn’t lean into it either. Instead, his body wound tighter and he grew considerably tense.

“Why are you actively trying to fuck this up?” Adam demanded, enraged.

“It’s all fucked anyway.” Ronan replied, meekly.

“No,” Adam snapped, leaning further in until Ronan could probably feel his breath on his face, until their noses almost touched. “Nothing is going to fuck this up. Except for you.”

Ronan frowned but Adam wasn’t done making his point. “If you do this now, you’re not only choosing to screw yourself over but you’re screwing me over too. Making me feel like an idiot for believing in you. But you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’ll finally get to prove me wrong.”

Ronan continued to stand there, unresponsive as a doll with a conked out battery.  

Adam shook his head. “Remember that it’s a choice to cave in and you’re making it.” He went on, irritation bleeding through his voice.

Ronan’s eyes bore into his. The sunlight seemed to warp his face, bring out the stunning blue of his eyes and mute the faux sense of danger he carried around like battle armor.

Adam could’ve confused him for something soft if it wasn’t for all those sharp edges in his manner, beneath his skin. He was something soft, though, it was a sort of bonedeep softness, unrecognizable by the untrained eye. Adam saw right through it. He grasped for it like a starving man fumbling for scraps.

“I can’t have it,” Ronan finally murmured, quiet and drone-like as he closed his eyes and finally leaned into Adam’s palm as if it would disappear if he didn’t acknowledge its presence. As if Adam could just muffle this uproarious feeling inside him even if he tried. As if he’d just melt away and this all was just a psychedelic dream. Adam thought it was exhausting constantly attempting to reassure Ronan that this was real, that this was something that they could keep, cultivate and maintain.

“I can’t have another person I get close to die on me.” His tone was muddy with emotion, his words strangled out as if his throat was choked full with broken glass.  
  
“It’s funny I firmly recall _someone_ pompously stating that there are no guarantees in life.” He teased, before sighing. “I can’t predict the future, Ronan, but I can assure you that right now? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Once the contract’s done -”

“Once the contract’s done we don’t have anything to be guilty for this anymore,” Adam promised, before breaking into the smallest smile. “We’ll be free to do this,” he pressed a kiss beneath Ronan’s earlobe, “and this,” he ran his lips over the side of Ronan’s jaw while dropping his other hand to run it over the bare skin beneath the hem of his t-shirt. “And this,” his mouth grazed his temple.

Ronan let out a shuddered breath before running his own hands down Adam’s arms and linking their fingers tightly together.

The next time Blue said that Ronan was a vulture, Adam was going to state all the reasons that she was vehemently mistaken. He could see all those vulnerabilities he masked now. Ronan was not a predator, he was just a chameleon who was incredibly tired of being pinned the prey, and that was a notion Adam could empathize with. All he needed was reassurance and a few tugs in the right direction and Adam was positive that he’d be okay, that they’d be okay.

Ronan leaned forward and fused their mouths together. Heat stuttered to life inside of him and everything else stripped down to dull background static. All that mattered was the promising crash of their lips and that furious need diffused in between them. Ronan unlaced one of his hands to card through Adam’s hair and Adam felt his tongue graze Ronan’s teeth as he pressed himself up against him, his gut clenching hotly. Ronan let out a quiet grunt as Adam dug his knee into his thigh and felt his cock twitch in his pants against him.

The phone rang jarringly, just as Adam ripped his mouth away to trail an askew line of wet kisses beneath Ronan’s collarbone. Adam groaned against Ronan’s skin and tracked his mouth back up to Ronan’s to catch him in one final, gnawing kiss before pulling away to answer the damn metal annoyance.

Ronan took the opportunity to grab himself a towel and wipe the blood off his cheek, some of which was now smeared on Adam’s own face from the clumsy contact.

“It’s him,” Adam didn’t have to specify who as he watched Ronan scowl. He tossed him the towel, which Adam caught barely at his chest before rubbing with it at his cheek.

“I’d hate to keep the asshole waiting,” Ronan said, with a devious grin.

“This is way too important,” Adam replied, waving the suggestion off and pressing the phone to his good ear.

“Have you got the address?” he asked, in lieu of a hello.

“Yes,” the Grey Man replied. “I’ll text it to you shortly, but there’s something else.”

“What is it?” Adam asked, meeting Ronan’s bemused gaze. He gestured for Adam to switch to speaker mode. “Greenmantle’s currently lodged at one of his summer lakehouses, which unfortunately for you, means he’s not currently here on a business basis.”

“Unfortunately?” Adam asked, as he hit speaker and held the phone away from his ear.

“Yes, urgently so. Because boys, if he’s on a personal leave, that ensures that he’s with his wife. Now, brevity is the soul of wit but I would be eminently cautious if I were getting myself into this because it guarantees double the threat. Piper Greenmantle is bad news.”  

“And Colin’s just a ray of sunshine, isn’t he?” Ronan mocked.

“Let me put it in terms that your juvenile minds will understand. If Greenmantle is a shark, she is a raptor. Alright?”

Ronan pantomimed a blowjob and Adam quickly played a laugh off as a cough.

“It’s his wife you’ll wanna worry about,” the Grey Man continued. “Piper’s vicious, cunning and at least three steps ahead of her husband when it comes to views on voluntary slaughter. She, unlike Colin, isn’t afraid to make a mess. If she finds out you’re attempting to blackmail her husband, she will cut you off at the knees. Violently. With a creative selection of knives.”

“What do you think Bonnie and Clyde did on their honeymoon? Went on a stabbing spree?” Ronan snapped, from behind Adam’s shoulder.  

“Take these warnings extremely seriously, Mr. Lynch. You boys are stepping into hostile territory here and you have no idea what these people are capable of.”

“I used to live in hostile territory,” Adam said.

Just as Ronan added, darkly. “Oh, I think we have little idea.”

“We’ll be cautious. Just send us the address.” Adam pressed.

“May I ask why you are so stubbornly keen on getting yourselves killed?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Grey,” Ronan said, in a mockingly cheery voice. “You’re the expert on killing without a cause. So, you let us know when you figure it out.”  
  
“I suppose that is my cue. I cannot blame you for despising me. I have done many a things I can never take back. I believe, someday, I will atone for it. All of it. I still think back on all the lives I’ve taken, they’re fresh in my mind as ever. Perpetual, even. Alive, even. Because they keep dying all over again in my head. Best of luck boys. Despite everything, I do hope you succeed.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- please, please leave me comments!!!  
> \- thank you so much for reading!  
> \- if you wanna hit me up on [tumblr.](http://winterblues.tumblr.com)


	23. Kill Your Darlings

_"You were my death, you I could hold when all fell away from me." - Paul Celan_

* * *

Adam cut the call just as Ronan’s derisive grin dropped.

“On the off chance that you’ll actually listen to me -” Adam started.

Ronan didn’t even allow him to finish as he replied. “Too late to back out now. We’ll be careful.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “You know there’s this concept called patience… Who am I kidding? Are you even anatomically capable of that?”

When Ronan just snorted, he sighed. “We’ll have to be discreet.” 

“Great! Discreet’s my middle name.” 

“Not even close. Hey, what  _is_ your middle name?”

“Not a snowflake’s chance in hell, Parrish.” 

“I should go shower,” Adam said, just as his phone buzzed and he stared down at the screen, lit up with Greenmantle’s address. The Grey Man kept his promises.

“It’s a three hour drive from the city. We gotta move.” 

Ronan smirked. “Maybe we should shower together to save time.”

“Okay.” 

Ronan gawked and his entire face paled. “You’re serious?”

Adam let out a nervous laugh and shrugged before heading to the bathroom. Ronan followed him cautiously, still dumbfounded. “Do you think we’re moving too fast or…” his words trailed off as Adam neatly peeled off his shirt and folded it down. Ronan’s eyes scanned Adam’s, refusing to stray from there. Adam stared back, just to watch Ronan fumble or melt beneath his gaze as he continued to undress. The next thing he knew, he was naked and stepping beneath the shower head with Ronan frozen by the door frame, expression tense.

Adam fumbled with the handle for a moment before the water streamed down all around him, fogging up the bathroom within seconds. He sighed in quiet satisfaction as he tucked his head back and leaned his spine into it. The hot spray was like balm to his tattered body so he closed his eyes and relished in it for a few stuttering moments.

Adam tilted his head back and opened his eyes to find Ronan still lingering around in speechless shock.

“Are you just going to watch or are you going to join me?” Adam asked.

There was enough room in the shower for the both of them, the space narrow but long. Adam had spent his whole life being starved of touch, he didn’t see the reason to deprave himself of it now. Plus, they had already seen each other in nothing but skin. Maybe they weren’t ready for full-fledged sex just yet, but did that mean they couldn’t have some fun?

It was going to be a ridiculously stressful day, and the more Adam thought about it, the more he worried that things would take a turn for the worse and they’d both be damned. So they deserved to cut themselves a break, to a have a chance to relax and indulge and to dwell in their delusional little bubble for just a little while longer.

Until everything imploded in their faces.

Ronan blinked before nodding slowly and shutting the bathroom door behind him. Once he’d stripped down to bare skin, he ambled over and pressed Adam right up against the tiles, gently taking his face in his hands and kissing him with the usual urgency. Adam smiled against the other boy’s mouth. It was strange, involuntary. It was a smile he somehow felt in his stomach. When Ronan released him, he tucked his head back towards the water and Adam stared at the way the rivulets streamed down his skin, over his shoulders and his hard chest like rain.  

A pulsating, strangely primal want seemed to rip through him. He was already hard and there wasn’t anything that he could do about it. Ronan arched a bemused eyebrow as he skirted Adam’s body. “I haven’t even really touched you yet.”

“Touch me then.” Adam replied, voice hoarse. 

Ronan didn’t need to be told twice. He stepped up behind Adam and pressed kisses down the nape of his neck while running his hands over his shoulder blades and pressing his torso up against Adam’s spine. Adam’s eyes fluttered shut and he leaned into Ronan’s shoulder.

The pressure and the heat of the water, Ronan’s explosive touch and the delirious warmth of his stunning mouth turned Adam’s body to wreckage. Ronan pivoted his hips as he ran lazy hands down Adam’s back, which made him arch in eager response. He had to let out a small moan when Ronan’s hands slipped beneath his spine and he gripped his ass in one quick motion. 

Adam couldn’t put to words the tumult inside him. It felt guttural, apocalyptic. It was a raw and slow-forming greed. It was a battle, it was a surrender. No matter what the heavy words jammed in his throat, they all seemed to slim down to one: his name.

“Ronan,” he gasped, as he trailed his hands back up his body and slid them beneath Adam’s arms to run briefly over his chest and tweak his nipples while simultaneously biting kisses into the side of his neck. 

Adam shuddered against his body, his breaths uneasy. They were wet with longing and steeped in pleasure. Water splattered over their shoulders and something nameless resounded in between them, blooming a fused and invisible animal with a feral appetite. 

Just as Ronan tilted Adam’s face towards his mouth and bit into his jaw, Adam turned him around and Ronan took a step backward to allow Adam to slide his hands down his arms and across the long expanses of his chest and abdomen. He didn’t fail to notice the shiver that coursed through Ronan when he crouched down a little and wrapped his arms around his waist to run the tip of his tongue over the hardened nub of his nipple.

Adam ran his hands over the outside of Ronan’s thighs before dragging his mouth over the softer flesh on the insides of them to trace light circles with his tongue.

He then slithered his way back up to catch his lips. Adam idly thought that everytime Ronan kissed him, he kissed him like it was the last time. The notion wrecked chills across his skin despite the feverishness of the water and he pulled away to nuzzle Ronan’s neck and press another kiss to his pulse point, his heartbeat thrumming against Adam’s mouth like a hymn he’d never forget. Ronan’s fine skin was tinged pink from the bleeding temperature of the water and his breathing hitched when Adam felt along the sculpted V of his hips before brushing against the dark trail of hair leading down between his legs. 

Adam swallowed hard as he felt Ronan’s flushed cock against his own.   

Then, before Ronan could say anything, Adam moved forward and slipped his tongue into his mouth. Ronan inhaled sharply through his nose as one of his fingers fastened in Adam’s soft, wet hair. Adam allowed his hand to drop from Ronan’s neck to his chest and further down until he was cupping his length. Ronan let out the quietest groan as Adam began to gently stroke him.

Their kisses grew in both heat and intensity and arousal flooded through them. Ronan allowed Adam to pin him to the cool tiles as he took Adam’s own cock into his hand and began to jerk him off. His pace was quick and rough and left Adam vehemently panting for breath. Adam struggled to match Ronan’s movements and pleasured in the way Ronan’s breath caught and his body twitched when Adam stroked him a certain way. Ronan flicked his wrist harder and Adam thought he felt it in every synapse, his insides blurring with it. His stomach bottomed out and he had to muffle the sounds that shredded through his windpipe against Ronan’s neck.

He then looked up to meet Ronan’s eyes as his grip tightened against Ronan’s cock one final time and his own orgasm knocked the wind right out of him, blissfully twisting his overheating system. Ronan was close seconds after, and he seemed to stop breathing entirely as he pressed Adam flush against his wound up body and came warmly against Adam’s stomach.

They traded crushing, frenzied kisses as they both came down from their highs and Adam finally pulled away to wash up the cum that was leaking down his navel and onto his thighs.

“ _Good god,_ Adam,” Ronan’s voice was still quivering.

 _Never stop saying my name like that,_ Adam thought, as he grabbed body wash off the dispenser and pooled some into his palms. “Come here,” he said, as Ronan obliged him and Adam stood right where the shower’s pressure was the strongest so that he could lather soap onto his skin.  

Bubbles oozed between his scarred knuckles as he gently massaged Ronan’s arms. Applying just the right amount of pressure to elicit a broken sequence of quiet sighs from him. It was fascinating, watching the tension melt from his shoulders as he kneaded his coarse thumbs in long, drawn out circles over his smooth skin. It was the most relaxed Adam had ever seen him. 

Ronan was watching him with an engrossed; disbelieving gaze from beneath hooded lashes.

Adam leaned into him and wiped a sud of soap away from beneath his eye.

“What?” 

“What.”

“I asked first.” 

“I don’t know what you’re asking.” 

Adam smiled teasingly. “Is there something on my face?”

Ronan knitted his eyebrows together and pretended to scan for faults. “Nope. Nothing that can be fixed, anyway. Don’t sulk, I’m sure you’re pretty by  _someone’s_ standards.”

“Yeah, yours,” Adam mumbled, before running a soapy hand along his collarbones. He liked inciting those reactions from him, to marvel at all the various ways he could make him quiver. It was reassuring to be able to touch him in such a slow and unhurried manner, to watch him give way like the sea to the shore.

Ronan sucked in a breath as Adam finished smearing soap down the middle of his chest and turned around to allow for Adam to cover the length of his spine. He noticed more patterns in the intricate tattoo as he lathered soap along his shoulders. Feathers curling down the centre of his spine, the petals of some strange wildflower beneath his right shoulder blade, vines that metamorphosed into wings.

He noticed other things too. The old echoes of a flesh wound along the side of his torso, a birthmark on his left elbow and the chafed purple scars from all the countless times he’d managed to split his own knuckles open.

It was poetic in a way, to see everything that he’d endured etched over his skin like a blurry movie reel containing glimpses of his being. Adam had long since begun to see his own injuries through tinted glasses, or perhaps he’d just become more accustom to the sight of them. On Ronan’s body however, they looked weirdly out of place, like specks of dust hampering an otherwise alluring painting. Beneath those hardened edges and the spine like a precipice, he was all soft muscle and honeyed warmth. Something like an abandoned building. Something that Adam, at discord with the world, thought deserved to be tended to rather than maimed.

“Are you surprised?” Ronan asked. 

“What?”

“You’re staring like it’s the first time you’ve ever laid eyes on untarnished skin.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call you untarnished,” Adam said, idly sliding his fingers over Ronan’s plastered knuckles.

“You know what I mean.”

“You should stick to tattoos. Scars bring out the worst in you.” Adam muttered.

“Thanks for the beauty tip. We should hurry up,” Ronan said, his tone rather flat. “We still have a killer to catch.”

“Yeah,” Adam replied, hoping to veil the reluctance in his voice. The water ran cold by the time they finished washing up and traded a few more kisses for good measure. Ronan marked his skin several times and Adam could hardly restrain from returning the favor. By the time they’d dried off and gotten changed they were both hesitant to let go of the fervor, the dream and return to a reality that was riddled with inconsistencies.  

It was a suffocatingly muggy day outside, the streak of inconsistent weather, seemingly persisting. The hood of Ronan’s BMW shined elusively in the afternoon light, and Adam figured that it’d be hot to the touch as they slid into the vehicle.

Once they settled in, Ronan’s knuckles were starkly white against the black leather of the steering wheel. The bloodlessness seemed to reflect in his face, suddenly drained of emotion. The tinsel blue of his eyes reflected nothing, and suddenly looking into them felt as if attempting to glimpse beneath the surface of a pond that’d been iced over. Adam felt a slow-furling tumult rising in his stomach as Ronan smashed the gas pedal and they gained momentum. For once, it had nothing to do with Ronan’s brash driving.

“Hey,” he said, attempting conversation despite his better judgement. “We should alert Gansey.”

Ronan slanted a long-lidded gaze at him. “Why the fuck?”

“He asked you to.”

“So?”

“We told him we’d let him in on this whole thing.” Adam reminded.

Ronan pretended to consider these words before rolling his shoulders. "I don’t care.”

“Ronan,” Adam started. "Don't be a baby."

“We’re not dragging Gansey into this.”

Adam scoffed quietly. Gansey wasn’t being dragooned against his will, he was practically knocking at danger’s door, begging to be let in, to catch a relieving glimpse of Ronan’s rotten mess, to perhaps pacify the fiasco the way a jockey tames his horse.

“I think Gansey would like to be dragged into this.”

“Too many cooks,” Ronan replied, idly.

“But he -” Adam was cut off.

“I  _don’t_ want to involve him, okay? Can you just let it slide?”  

“Why?” 

“Do I have to provide you with an explanation for everything that I do, Parrish? Do you have a logbook of my every move sitting somewhere that you have to update?” 

“Yes and yes.” Adam said, only half-kidding.

Ronan snarled at that. The same impenetrably dull expression plastered across his face, his mouth shaped like an upturned horseshoe. While most people would’ve probably presumed it was anger or irritation, Adam quickly gathered that it was probably anxiety. This was the day he’d been fantasizing about ever since he’d discovered his father’s limp and unresponsive body sprawled at his feet. And this was the man who’d taken everything from him. Every inkling of family, of hearth, of life and hope. Yet despite all the adrenaline and rage that had carried him so far, Adam could see that there was a part of him that didn’t want to go through with this, a part of him that was perhaps, docile and afraid.

Naturally so, because Adam was getting queasy by the mere weight of the document riddled with false accusations sitting inside his messenger bag like a dagger, like a threat.  
  
“You’re nervous,” Adam observed, quietly.

Not a muscle in Ronan’s jaw twitched, but Adam could see that he’d hit the nail on its head.

The truth was in the eyes. If you looked closely enough, for long enough. Somehow, Ronan’s eyes always betrayed the ruse his body attempted to keep up. Gave away whatever he was feeling. If he was feeling. And he usually was. So much more than he let on. The thing Adam had learned about Ronan was that he did everything in opposing extremities, he was either freakishly quiet or abundantly loud, he was either feeling everything all at once or nothing at all.

It was as endearing as it was worrying, Adam supposed.

“Self-projecting, are we?” Ronan replied, icily. 

“I’m not an idiot,” Adam said, calmly. “And you’re unconvincing.”

“What exactly do you think I’m trying to convince you of?” He replied, tone still dry.

“You’re not trying to convince  _me_ of anything. You’re trying to convince yourself,” Adam said, smoothly. “That you have to be the bad guy. That you have to see this through because it’s all that you’ve been able to think about. This debilitating need for closure. It's uprooted your whole life, and a part of you wonders, even if we succeed today, your father's killer still wins in a way, because you allowed him to steal precious days from your life.”  

Ronan’s silence was not confirmation or submissiveness, but it wasn’t a reprimand either.

Adam turned his gaze to the road ahead, the sun reflected bright gilts across the rooftops, in between the emerald afros of trees. Ronan turned up the air conditioning and Adam leaned in and gave Ronan’s hand a small, reassuring squeeze. 

“We’ll conquer this.”

"He doesn't get to win anymore. Luck runs out." He replied, calmly.

"You know," Adam said, softly. "You don't always have to let the world take you for a ride."

Ronan stared dead-eyed straight ahead, like he was attempting to block Adam’s image off on purpose. “Gansey thinks he owes me something,” he said, in a voice that was barely a voice at all. “I’m sick of attempting to explain to the fucker that it doesn’t work that way.”

“He says you would follow him into death,” Adam noted, recalling their conversation earlier, when Gansey had mentioned Ronan accompanying him on all of his excursions. 

“Doesn’t matter. I won’t let him follow me into mine.” 

“Way to be positive,” Adam said, even as he admired the dulcet notion of their friendship. From afar, Ronan and Gansey had it perfect, the sort of friendship they turned into children’s books. The fox and the hound. Two people who were in sync in a way that even the cosmos couldn’t notch. Knitted together by circumstance and deference and a platonic love and understanding that trumped all else.

Any notions of mistrust or discord were expunged in the bargain.  

From up close, Adam envied it. Even as he thought that maybe he and Blue perhaps held a shade of what he saw bloomed in between Ronan and Gansey.

“When this is over,” Adam started, to make Ronan understand that this would not be a suicide mission, that after everything they’d been through, they couldn’t let it be; couldn’t even afford to think like that.

“If it’s over,” Ronan corrected, in that same bland tone.

Adam rolled his eyes. “ _When_ this is over you should really try rekindling your relationship with your brothers.”  

“I can’t see them again.” Ronan snapped, resolute.

“I’ll come with you.” Adam offered. 

“No contract’s binding you to me this time.”

“I know,” he remarked. “I want to be there for you.”

Ronan stared at him, the drab expression melting to be replaced with a maze of enthrallment and disbelief. Then he leaned in and pressed a kiss in between Adam’s ear and his left eye.

Adam closed his eyes at the brief presence of warm breath ghosting over his skin, mourning the loss of it almost immediately. Ronan pulled away and Adam’s thoughts toppled and spiraled off into deeper depths, thoughts of blood and despicable crimes and everything that could possibly go wrong going wrong coalescing with an underlying sense of sharpening adrenaline, of adventure and dread.

After stopping at a gas station to refill the BMW’s emptying fuel tank and making another pitstop to grab something to eat, they parked the car several instances away from the lake house.

“Are you ready?” Adam asked, turning in his seat.

“I’ve been ready for a long time.”

“No, but really. Are you ready?”

Ronan merely nodded and took a deep breath. Something hard and resolute now gleaming behind his vacant eyes. “Let’s end this bastard’s reign.”

Adam nodded and followed Ronan as he slithered out of the car. Their footfalls were careful and heavy as they made their way up to the front of the lavish lake house; large and equipped with a gabled roof. Sinuous vines ranging in size and vivacity clambered over the peach-swathed walls. The sky was bitten a pure pastel blue above the brick mansion, the sunlight glinting off the windows occluding any perceivable indication of what was going on in the rooms inside.

The privileged thrived in makeshift little instances of paradise, Adam knew this, but the mere idea of men like Colin living their benighted and carefree lives in places such as these dredged up a welling bout of anger that Adam was surprised wasn’t somehow staining his skin.

Ronan extended his arm without looking at him and Adam obliged, slipping the fat, falsified document into his hand. It took one minute for Colin Greenmantle to receive the alerting text (another promise the Grey Man had surprisingly honored), five for him to step out of the front door and appraise his surroundings and two for his gaze to snag on them as he made his way towards them in slow, callous strides.

The look on his face was displeased but didn’t seem to hold an inkling of intimidation, like they were mere hounds he was coming to chase away. Too bad he wasn’t aware that they were wolves poised for offense.

Colin Greenmantle the killer, may have been formidable and derisive, but Greenmantle the man, was anticlimactic at best and unimpressive at worst. He looked like your average middle-aged man, not brute or comically evil or even illicitly charming. Merely mediocre. All that fuss and maybe Greenmantle was actually a bit of a letdown.

And yet, he was the man who’d destroyed Ronan’s family, destroyed, perhaps, several families. In several area codes. By a mere flick of the finger. It was detonation without touch, a reach that moved men like a magic wand. Adam felt his abhorrence grow. Men like this were cheats and cowards. Rolling around with pigs and fiendishly deciding that they wouldn’t get befouled by the dirt in which they deal.

Adam spared him another look. While the crinkles beneath his eyes suggested he’d withered with stress and age, the skin along his cheekbones was stretched taut and traditionally handsome. He was dressed like the upper-class so often do, to flaunt their wealth by the exquisiteness of their wardrobe.

He was impeccably immaculate. From his clean-shaven jaw to the poise with which he stood, everything about him induced a certain arrogance, a certain self-possessing air. Adam figured he was either completely uninterested in disguising his disposition or he was just utterly inadequate at attempting to.

Maybe mentally, he was always plotting deaths; keenly aware of his own crimes because up close, his reputation did him justice. There was something insouciant and ragged in his eyes. As if, despite how composed he seemed to appear, he wasn’t all quite there.

“Are you here selling girl scout cookies?” he taunted. When neither Adam nor Ronan graced that statement with an answer, Colin’s expression further soured.

“I don’t enjoy being so brashly disturbed while I’m sojourning. Family time’s important, you know, and my wife gets bitchy if I’m not available to scratch her every itch. So, you boys better have an abundantly convincing reason for your untimely visit.”

Adam just stood there in silence, standing close enough to Ronan that their arms might’ve brushed if they hadn’t been standing so very still. The noon was still humid, the air around them seemingly pulsating with a rabid sort of heat. The sun, now half-hidden behind a precarious pillar of clouds, seemed to beat against his back with bare fists. Or perhaps, that was just his heart attempting to punch its way out of him. He couldn’t tell the difference. He couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“You don’t look much like a killer.” Adam commented.  _Not that they ever really do._

Colin blinked, before shooting him a long, searching gaze. “I’m not quite sure,” he started. “Whether to take that as a relief or a barb at my aptitude.”

“Or lack there of,” Adam keenly supplied.

Colin sneered just as Ronan smiled. Cold and opulent. He stood tall and flippant in the face of his demon, despite of whatever war may be raging on inside him.

“I will only ask nicely once,” the man snapped. “Who are you and what are you here for?”

It was Adam’s turn to smile. “Are you sure you’re prepared to hear the answer to that question?”

Now Colin smiled, without a hint of warmth. Riddled with menace and teeth. “Oh, I’m quite sure.”

“I know what you are.” Adam supplied, simply. He could feel his cheeks begin to hurt. He wouldn’t drop the smile though, not yet. A nasty, surging loathing was manifesting like a critter inside him, swallowing his fear, or perhaps transmuting it into some kind of a fatal confidence.

They still had the upper hand and they’d merely begun shuffling the deck.

Colin tilted his head curiously. “And what am I?”

“Don’t you know?” Adam rebuked.

Colin narrowed his eyes. “Are we playing a game?”

“Possibly.”

“Well, then. You’re in luck. I happen to enjoy games.”

“Me too,” Adam replied, blithely. “I can’t attest that this particular game will be at all enjoyable, though. At least, not for you.”

“Who are you?” Colin snapped.

“My name is Adam Parrish,” he responded.

Greenmantle frowned, solidifying Adam’s quick-budding hatred. The name meant nothing to him. Why would it?

“Don’t fret, Colin. See, my name’s just a red herring. My name won’t matter.” He smiled again, then. His cheeks stinging. He wondered if he looked deranged. The scars Kavinsky had gifted him still painted freshly across his face. He flicked a cool look to Ronan, who stood by his side, marmoreal and obtrusive. The quietest viper there was.

Adam wasn’t even sure he was breathing. Perhaps he was afraid he’d let his hatred spill into the air around him and spread or hinder things.

“Do you know  _his_ name?” Adam asked. “That’s the million dollar question.” 

“Of course,” Colin said, after sparing Ronan a mere split-second glance. “I wonder,” he said, then. “If you’ll go down gallantly fighting till the very last breath, in the same way that your father did.”

“Ronan Lynch.” He continued. “It’s a shame, really. You’ve gotta admire a man who can hold onto his sanity, even at the very precipice of death.”

Adam felt something inside him tense, but in his peripheral, Ronan looked more composed than he’d ever been. It would’ve been unsettling if it wasn’t so commendable.

“We’re not afraid of you.” Adam spat, bitterly.

“And that’ll be your second mistake of the day,” Greenmantle said, a nauseatingly pleased smile tugging together his concentrated features. “I could string you both up from your innards from this tree,” he said, just as Adam registered the notion hidden beneath the blunt of his words. “Or I could spare us all the trouble and let you go. The choice is yours,” he felt his heartbeat shudder erratically as somebody snuck up behind him and pressed their body to his.

“Maybe I should introduce you to my wife, Piper,” he said, calmly. “I’m afraid she doesn’t play very nice.” 

* * *

Piper Greenmantle, with her wheat-field yellow ringlets and red-lipped tenacity, looked quite acutely bored by the idea of holding someone’s life in the palm of her very hands.

She gave him one smooth kick in the back of the knee with the forepart of her own and the next thing he knew he was stumbling against her. She held his weight somehow, pinning his spine against her shoulder. Pain shot through him like a geyser and suddenly, he felt the polar blade of a butcher knife blocking his windpipe and feline nails digging into his throat.

“Hi there, sweetie,” she purred, against his listening ear. “Aren’t you delicious?” 

He hadn’t even seen or heard her approach. She must’ve been extremely covert. Slick as a panther. The Grey Man had warned them about his wife. He’d warned them and they’d chosen not to pay it any heat.

It was something Adam hadn’t been expecting. Maybe he’d been blindsided by the extent of his own fearlessness. Maybe he hadn’t thought Greenmantle would actually attack, at least not until after they’d delivered their sound threat. Adam struggled now, against the woman’s constraining hold and his panicked gaze swiveled to Ronan, who’d paled merely inches away from him. 

“Boys, it’s been a pleasure, really,” Colin said. “But I’m afraid it’s time we round this little circus up. One way or another.” 

“Wait,” Ronan’s words sounded steely, and far from a cry for help. Somehow, he was maintaining his facade, even though Adam could see the nerves tensing beneath his skin in the generous sunlight. This seemed to amuse Colin, but Piper’s grip on Adam’s throat only strengthened, and he had to let out a small strangled noise. 

Ronan’s eyes flashed to his before switching back to Colin. “You’ll want to see this.” He said, holding up the envelope, which was beginning to leak blood. 

“Is that a present for us?” Piper crooned. 

“How considerate,” Colin muttered. 

“If you touch a single strand on his head, I’ll make you come to regret it.” Ronan snapped. His tone was perfunctory and factual, but there was a serrated limn to it.

“Oh, how exciting!” Piper giggled against Adam’s face. Her breath smelt like raspberry bubblegum. 

“Is that a threat, young man?” Colin asked, sounding a lot less pleasured by his words than his partner. 

“It’s a promise.” Ronan replied.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you. Considering you aren’t really in the position to be doing anything, not while I hold your mouthy little friend here hostage.”

Ronan bit his lower lip. “You won’t kill him in broad daylight.” 

“Are you going to try to stop me?” Piper challenged. Adam could hear the smile in her voice. He felt his heart drop into his gut. This was actually rousing her.

Ronan flicked her a mordant look and then his eyes were on Colin again. “Don’t you ever do your own dirty work, you gutless bastard?” 

Colin grinned. Wide and condescending. “Does a king not delegate? People are weapons and I happen to influence many. Why should I trouble myself with expendables when I have an arsenal of scapegoats in my possession?” he asked, before shooting his wife a considerate look and adding, “Not that you’re one of them, my dear.” Piper scowled at that and pushed the knife harder into his skin until Adam’s air supply was cut off. His nerves raced. What the hell was Ronan  _doing?_  He was going to die. 

Ronan took a cautious step forward before whipping the folder open and pulling a small, rotting, severed child’s hand from it. Piper stepped over the back of Adam’s shoe to get a closer look just as Greenmantle’s features contorted in repulsion. Ronan dangled the gorey limb from his hand like it was a treat he was showing off to his dog before going off in a warning tone that was as cynical and mocking as it was enflamed. 

“This folder tells the story of Colin Greenmantle, intellectual mass murderer and habitual pervert. Found guilty of an alarming range of charges. Care to take a look?”

Adam saw it. The beautiful moment the man faltered, like the filthy cornered animal he was. The twitch in his jaw and then the spark of realization in his eyes. “You couldn’t possibly have -” he stuttered, before shooting his wife a grim look. “They’re ridiculous lies! These scoundrels must have had it all forged!” Piper looked apathetic to her husband’s lily-livered claims.

“Seriously?” she snapped, scathingly. “You’re scared of a bunch of dumb  _papers_?”

“We do live in an electronic age,” Ronan supplied, helpfully. “It’s all on your phone, and mine. One quick text and it all goes public. So go ahead. Kill him. Hell, you can come at me, too. But you’ll go down with us. All I have to do is press one little button and you’re history.” He took one more step forward. “So if I were you, I would think very carefully about the consequences of your next move before you go ahead and make it.” 

“You won’t.” Greenmantle managed.

“And what’s holding me back, Colin? You took everything from me. I have nothing left to lose.”

Adam’s heart froze behind his ribs just as Colin narrowed his eyes. “What about your friend?” 

“What about him?” Ronan asked, coolly.

“Weren’t you willing to ruin me for him just now?” 

“You’re ruined as it is, Colin.” 

The two men stared each other down. Ronan’s expression was a plagued and calculating ghost. Colin looked like he’d lost the ledge he’d been standing on. Adam let out short, stilted breaths. He already knew who was going to win. Nobody could match Ronan’s trenchant gaze. Not even a man like Colin Greenmantle. Tension smothered the air.

Then, he was proven right. 

“Piper,” he said, sounding utterly defeated. “Release the boy. We’re getting out of here.” 

 _“What?”_  she gasped, sounding outraged. 

“Just do what I said.” Colin blabbed, as he pulled out his phone and began pushing buttons, his eyes widening at whatever he saw.

Hook, line and sinker. 

“How the f -” he began, but Piper cut him off almost immediately. 

“You know, you never wanna have any fun anymore,” she whined, before dropping the blade and pushing Adam away while she stomped her heel-trapped feet against the ground. Adam’s hands flew to his sore neck as he stumbled to put as much distance between him and Colin Greenmantle's wife as he could.

“We could hold them hostage or flay them alive. Starving them would also be a doable solution. We’ll see how confident they are when their systems are failing on them! We could erase all evidence but  _nooo!_ You just wanna let yourself be outwitted by a couple of  _children_! You just wanna cave in. Where are your balls, Colin? Did they fall off after I told you I wouldn’t fuck you this morning?”

Ronan smiled coldly. Adam rubbed at his neck, the skin there still prickling as if the knife’s spirit lingered.

Greenmantle’s entire face seemed to deflate at that like a red balloon. “I cannot risk going to jail to indulge your homicidal tendencies, my darling.” His words were rattled between gritted teeth.

“Oh! Don’t ‘darling’ me now! Love’s all about sacrifice! You can’t spend a few terrible years in a prison cell for me? Romeo literally died for Juliet! Hello?” she continued, as Greenmantle shot Ronan one last, rancid look. “How do I know you won’t just make it all public anyway?”

Ronan’s smile hadn’t faltered a bit. “You don’t.”

Greenmantle merely let out a languid sigh before turning on his heels and walking away, his head bent like in mourning. He was done for. 

“You are unbelievable! Why did I even marry you? I want a fucking refund!” Piper rambled, setting off behind him.

Then they were alone. They’d won. And they were alone. Greenmantle was going to leave and never come back. And they’d won. 

Adam caught Ronan just as he dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around him and burrowed against his neck, breathing heavily against the warm, reassuring fabric of his skin.

“It’s over?” Ronan asked, despite the abundant proof that it was.

“It’s over.” Adam agreed. 

“It’s over.” Ronan repeated.

“Did you really mean it when you said you had nothing to lose?” he mumbled, as Ronan fastened an arm around his spine and spread his fingers into the soft field of his hair.

“No.” Ronan replied.

When Adam said nothing, he added. “If I’d continued to let on just how much your dumb ass means to me I think he would’ve stolen the upper hand right from beneath me and I would have let him.”

The words seemed to echo in his deaf ear. _And I would have let him._

Adam felt warmth seize him and then he kissed Ronan. On the forehead and on the nose and on the side of his mouth to still the quivering of his jaw. He was in shock. Adam allowed him a few more moments to process, then pulled himself up, gently, before extending an arm towards Ronan. 

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get the hell out of here before Piper Greenmantle tries to chase us off with a lawnmower or a hacksaw.” 

“How do you feel?” he asked, once he’d helped him up and they’d made their way back to the car after leaving the folder to rot and collect dust right at the entrance of Greenmantle’s grand summer villa. Ronan had gone mute, but Adam could practically see the tumult roaring inside him from the way he carried his body, like a burden, like an accomplishment. 

Ronan turned to face him and it was like watching someone being baptized. “I think I just got exorcised.” He said. Freedom flooded his features like gold. The late afternoon sunlight spilled into the car, onto the dashboard and across their faces and it felt, momentarily, like being embraced by a halo. 

Adam felt a smile tug at his lips. “Good riddance.” He replied.

They drove and drove after that, because Ronan didn't want to go home, and Adam wanted to give Ronan time to grieve; space to clear his head. The truth was, today was finally the day Ronan would truly come to terms with the tragedy that had wrecked his family and today was finally the day that he would confront his ghosts and hopefully, set them free. 

Adam said nothing, merely sat back and watched - a patient observer, staring at an image that seemed to shift & molt & mean something completely different every time one scrutinized it. They ended up parking the car on a deserted stretch of road as the sun began to set behind them, their shadows crawled away from them, the fuel tank grew half-empty and Adam's own thoughts whirled precariously. 

Ronan had shrunk so far into his own head that when he finally looked up to meet Adam, he was blinking back tears. 

Adam gaped. 

Never would he have imagined seeing Ronan Lynch cry. Not in this life, not in the next. And yet, there he was, right in front of him, susceptible and vulnerable, riddled with pain. Adam felt his spine contort, his heart dripped from between his fingers. 

"You're not going to say something?" Ronan prompted, quietly. The pure tension in his taut shoulders was palpable under his shirt.

"Nothing I say's going to make a difference." Adam supplied. 

"Good answer," Ronan muttered. "Maybe my influence is curtailing your stupidity."

"You really have to work on that gratitude of yours, you know. I literally had a knife drawn at my throat because of you."

A muscle in Ronan's cheek twitched as his gaze swiveled to stare out at the walls swathed in multicolored bursts of unintelligble graffiti.

"Yeah," his tone was sour. "I thought I was going to throw up. Or knock that bottle-blonde bitch right off her feet." He said. "I was afraid... I was..." he groaned, like every word was somehow taking a physical toll. "I couldn't think straight when she - when you -" 

"Hey," Adam said, softly, turning slightly in his seat to press his palm under Ronan's warm cheek. "I know." 

Ronan gazed at him. His blue-gilt gaze unyielding and merciless. "Well," he continued. "At least you don't have to worry about any more near-death experiences. At least, not because of me. You're a free man."

Adam was not half as proficient at staring people down as Ronan was, but he was up to the challenge, for once. He met Ronan's stoic gaze with an obdurate one of his own. "You're stupid if you think I'm leaving you."

"How many times do I have to tell you that I don't need a fucking nanny?"

"Stop trying to kick every good thing that's ever crossed your path right back out of your life. Stop trying so hard to block the light." 

"You sure you're a good thing?" 

"Tell me I'm not. You don't lie, right? I want to hear you say it." Adam snapped. "Come on, then," He prompted, when Ronan didn't respond. "Say it."

"I can't believe it's over." He finally admitted, closing his eyes.

"It's over, but you know what isn't over? Your life, Ronan. You're finally free to live it."

"What if it never feels the same?"

Adam shook his head. "It's not supposed to, but that's okay."

"I think... I think I got so caught up in scheming and plotting, I ran myself aground and now I don't know the first thing about how to go about my life."

"Well," Adam said, sliding his hand down Ronan's neck. "Someone once told me that you can't plan your whole world down to a tee. Sometimes, you just gotta spin the wheel and hope it lands on something wonderful. Dive into it, completely puzzled and unprepared." 

"Says you," Ronan said, disbelief glittering beneath the dark splatter of his eyelashes. 

"Call it serendipity or faith or divine intervention, but I spun the wheel when I signed that contract you hate so much, and I think it landing on you proved to be very rewarding. So maybe I've become more open to letting the universe toss me around." 

Ronan broke into a small smile before turning his chin to catch Adam's hand in his and press a kiss to it. "Alright. I'll take that gamble."

"Mm," Adam replied, already leaning in to catch his mouth in a faithful kiss, his lips curling in sweet anticipation. "I don't intend to lose." 

"Hey," Ronan's voice came out in a bare whisper. 

"Yeah?" Adam breathed, against his face.

"I..." when he couldn't finish his sentence, Adam rolled his eyes, kissed him briefly, and joked as he pulled away. "I know, I know, you love me."

"What if I do?" Ronan asked, arching an uncertain eyebrow.  
  
Every nerve-ending inside of him twisted, his heart staggered. Ronan's eyes were wild, unhinged. Adam felt the fevers in them echo in between his ribs, and then, he smiled. It was the sort of smile you felt in your stomach. He was finally coming to terms with that unwritten feeling writhing inside of him, and maybe for once, he wasn't terrified of it. 

"If you do," Adam replied, carefully. "Then I feel the same way." 

This time, when they kissed, the air thrummed with it, the sky collapsed, the world felt ripe with sharp, beautiful affirmation.   
  
Maybe everything was a mess, but the worst was behind them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- this is the second last chapter guys, so flood that comment section for me, yeah? :D  
> \- i cannot believe how far this story has come, thank you all so much for reading & sticking by me! <3


	24. Light Through The Veins

_"Are you there? Are you soaked in dreams still? Did I say the light was touching everything?" - Robert Hass_

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

It was strange, to feel so unspeakably whole and so unspeakably empty at the same time.

It was, of course, a surreally pleasant emptiness. Like the breath of dawn, or a comfortable bout of silence. Adam stared wistfully up at the sky. It felt like the day had been shaped for him. The sky a limpid blue, cloudless and hanging heavy above them. Spokes of sun-warmed grass teased his feet, pricked at his skin. He took a breath, and then another. Everything hurt less during moments like these.

Quiet, picture-perfect, a little unbelievable in their gratitude.

It’d been exactly a month since the contract, that had essentially bound Adam to Ronan, had seized being valid. It’d been exactly a month since he’d had the grinning blade of a knife digging into his throat. It’d been exactly a month since Declan had paid him his due, leaving his pockets heavier than they’d been in years. Not only would he be able to pay off his tuition and rent fees, but he had cash to spare. It was almost unsettling. He’d never had money to use for… leisurely purposes. He would still invest most of it into his savings account, but maybe a loose coin here and there wouldn’t hurt.

Adam did not take his newfangled gratuity for granted.

Maybe he hadn’t earned the money in the traditional sense, but it was still slippery as water. He would never get heedless or big-headed about it. An animal could not change what was in its nature, and he’d accepted long ago his inherent stinginess when it came to matters of finance.

Once their term had ended, Ronan had given him a long sideways glance. “Oh,” he’d said. “Is it independence day already?” Adam had punched him gently on the shoulder before smothering him with a kiss that tasted like the ashes of all his inhibitions regarding their relationship. He was finally free to pursue this… ‘predicament’ with Ronan without having to feel guilty about it.

Adam exchanged a brief, considering glance with Gansey. He was sat with Blue curled up against his chest, her head lying dazedly against his shoulder, his arms hung loosely around her waist. He was dressed like a billboard in a shockingly bright henley and his staple boat shoes, which Blue had unsuccessfully attempted to feed to the cows on numerous occasions.

“How many pairs of these _monstrosities_ do you own?”

“Oh, Jane. If I told you, I think you’d have my closet incinerated.”

“I’m already considering having your closet incinerated.”

Noah Czerny was chasing Ronan’s little brother, Matthew across the field. They both had flowers woven into their bright heads of hair. Matthew was giggling hard about something Noah had said, and Ronan watched them with a quiet, burning intensity, a glint of pride that seemed to reflect in his entire stance. His arms tucked indolently behind his head. Like he had not a care in the world. Adam almost couldn’t recognize him, amongst these emerald pastures and the candy blue sky. He was wearing a blue t-shirt. It was the first time Adam had ever seen him wear a color that wasn’t black or blacker.

The color matched the dizzying shade of his eyes.

It suited him. This entire place suited him. He fit, like a brush stroke on a canvas. He fit like a king on his throne.

“Hey, you little shits better not get your filthy hands anywhere near me,” he called, which of course, in turn, led to the two of them charging at him, giddy with mischief, their dirt-flecked hands stretched with intent. Ronan doubled over on his back as Matthew landed on top of him and chuckled as he slapped his brother’s hands away from his face.

“I swear I’m gonna have Declan cut off your phone privileges,”

“I don’t care,” came Matthew’s nuanced reply.

“How about I have him cut off your McDonald’s privileges instead?”

Matthew gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

“Watch me!”

They wrestled. Adam felt something spread warm as jam inside his chest. Ronan was attempting to mend things with Declan, and even though they had a long way to go before they were even half the shade of what they used to be, Ronan managing to say Declan’s name without his mouth taking on a scowl was a pronounced improvement.

The Barns felt like a little pocket dimension of their very own. Miraculous, tidy, rich with reveries. There was also a magical talking forest to venture to and a king to hunt down, so Adam’s summer had just gotten a whole lot more exciting.

“I wrote a thesis based on your abilities,” he said, turning to Ronan, promptly.

“Did you mention my x-ray vision?”

“It was a speculative essay on dreaming and how it may relate to the conscious state of mind.”

“Okay, Captain Boring.” He muttered, before breaking into a small grin. “Does that make me your muse?”

“More like my lab rat,” Adam teased, and Ronan lunged at him. His breath hitched as he was once again, pinned beneath Ronan’s weight, their chests almost touching.

“Get a room, you two!” came Blue’s voice from somewhere behind them. She said something else too, but Adam was too caught up in Ronan to notice. He could feel his breath against his lips, his crucifix neck piece brushing against his collarbone, his eyes wide as diamonds. Warmth spilled a sea in his lungs. 

Just as Ronan’s fingers trailed up his arms and Adam leaned in to kiss him, Ronan turned his chin and pushed off of him. “Save it for tonight,” he whispered, with a wicked grin, as he neatly pulled away and plopped back down next to the others. 

Adam didn’t mind the teasing. He would have his revenge later that evening, he was sure.

Taking up this job had turned out to be the best decision of his life. His world had been so very small, so compartmentalized, so lifeless. Now he was doing better at school, he had a group of friends whom he wouldn’t trade for the world. He had Ronan. The future was wide and horrifying and effervescent and wondrous. He had no idea what else fate would hold in store. He’d never believed in concepts such as fate before he’d met Ronan.

Ronan, who’d come into his life a wrecking ball, Ronan, who looked at him like he was half a dream and half a boy, Ronan, who, somehow, made him want to be a better person.  
  
He’d never been a believer in a lot of things before. Now, his newfangled belief that everything would eventually work itself out was beginning to pay off. While this life wasn’t perfect, it dawned upon him, rivetingly, ridiculously, that he was happy. And no matter how fleeting that happiness might be, right now, in this moment, it was there, stirring an eddie light as spring inside him, and it was demanding and it was real and nothing could steal that from him.

As for the Ronan predicament, he wasn’t sure where they were headed, but Adam thought he would quite like to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- wow, i feel like it's the end of an era. am i exaggerating? i don't know. I LOVE THESE BOYS OK. plus, writing this fanfiction has given me so much more confidence in my own writing abilities, and your comments & constant support as my loyal readers has been so very motivating! to those of you who've been there since the very first chapter, thank you, and even to the rest of you, who stuck by long periods of wait between chapters & my all-over-the-place idea for an AU!! this story started as a random notion i couldn't get out of my head one night and bloomed into a story i'm very proud of. this has given me the ammunition to move away from fanfiction and to begin writing my own original novels. so thanks for reading and please leave me one last comment before you go, yeah?? :D  
> \- you can also find me on tumblr if you ever just wanna chat. my poetry url is jupiterreed.tumblr.com and my main/fandom url is winterblues.tumblr.com, so hmu anytime! i hope you're satisfied with the way i ended things by the way, i think i'm happy with it. :)

**Author's Note:**

> The Translation To The Crappy Latin I Totally Got From The Dodgy Wits Of Google Translate:
> 
> “Quod iustum est. Et mordebit,” - That’s right, I bite.  
> “Ut satis mirari si tu non sapis quad.” - I wonder if you’re as pretty as you are smart.  
> “Sit scriptor celebrare! Omnem vestimenta vestra.” - Let’s celebrate! Remove all your clothes.  
> “Sit quod venatus incipere.” - Let the games begin. 
> 
> \- i would soon totally appreciate your thoughts on this!! please do leave me a comment if you enjoyed it and want more. :) <3  
> \- come talk to me on my [tumblr](http://winterblues.tumblr.com) blog thingamajig


End file.
